Abuja Nigeria: President Muhammadu Buhari appears set to return the 2016 Budget to the National Assembly to rework because what the lawmakers sent to him on Thursday for assent, according to Presidency sources, fell below his expectations. By implication, Buhari will not sign the Appropriation Bill into law, as earlier planned, before jetting out of the country this weekend to China for economic and business deals for Nigeria. The sources confirmed that the President felt disappointed that provisions for major national projects and programmes that could turn around the economy were either outrightly removed or funds for them ridiculously slashed by the lawmakers. It will be recalled that, in a bid to urgently assent to the bill, which was transmitted to him on Thursday, the Presidency had convened an emergency Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Friday where the document was distributed to Ministers to review as it affected their respective ministries, departments and agencies. At the review meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is the Head of the Economic Team, it was discovered that many strategic projects were either removed or provisions made for them significantly slashed to the point that made a mockery of the projects. Some of the projects were:
*Lagos-Calabar N60 billion coastal railway removed
*Idu-Kaduna rail line cut by N8.7 billion
*Major federal roads slashed
*Polio eradication, essential drugs for HIV/AIDS expunged
*Agric/water resources re-allocated to constituency projects
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