Senate steps down consideration of revised N10.509trn budget

The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday, 9^th June 2020, stepped down their deliberation on the revised N10.509 trillion as 2020 budget forwarded to the Senate by the President Muhammadu Buhari for consideration.

The stepping down of the deliberation on the revised budget is because the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Jubrin Barau didn’t submit the team’s report on the budget.

Senator Barau while addressing his colleagues during plenary in the upper chamber of the National Assembly in Abuja, attributed the reason behind why he couldn’t submit the team’s report to the failure of the Budget Office to capture the entire N500 billion intervention fund for COVID-19 in the Appropriation Bill.

According to Barau, the N314 billion captured as part of the intervention fund, the balance of N186 billion proposed for the health sector was not captured in the revised budget.

The committee informed the Budget Office of the omission last week, revealing that the budget office, in its response, explained that there was no need for the entire N500 billion to be captured in the budget since it was fully highlighted in the MTEF/FSP documents already passed by the Senate, Senator Barau said.

The lawmaker added that following this response, the committee rejected the excuse in line with Sections 80 and 81 of 1999 Constitution which empowered the National Assembly to appropriate every single kobo for the executive before spending.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan in his remarks directed that those responsible for the budget documents should provide them without further delay.

He also asked the Senate Appropriation Committee to have the documents printed on Tuesday (yesterday) unfailingly, lay it before the lawmakers today for final consideration tomorrow.

Lawan said: “Let me make this comment. I will advise those responsible for putting budget estimates for revised or whatever to be meticulous and responsible.

“The National Assembly cannot be a destination where a lack of efficiency in somebody’s job would be addressed. We are supposed to have the entire bill presented us and you did the right thing by asking and insisting that a letter be written to specifically address that problem that there was an omission on their side.

Ayooluwa Joshua