Why we postponed the passage of the 2023 budget – Senate spokesperson

Senate Spokesperson Senator Bashiru Ajibola revealed that the Senate has postponed passage of the Appropriation Bill 2023 to work with the executive in budget appropriation.

Ajibola, who appeared on Politics Today on Friday, a Channels TV show, which was monitored by our correspondent, said the budget needed to be streamlined to ensure that a project allocated did not appear more than once under different departments.

He added that such issues arose when the committees questioned the secretaries general of the MDAs for the various assigned projects, noting that there had to be bilateral agreements between the committees of the Assembly and those of the executive .

"The reality is that one of the areas where the executive and the legislature must necessarily collaborate is that of the drafting of the appropriation laws. And in this regard, the draft that has been sent by the Executive to the National Assembly will have to be worked on by the various credit committees of the National Assembly, that is to say the two chambers, the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives.< /p>

"It's just a question of what has been allocated and whether what has been placed under a particular ministry should be in those ministries. So you have to rationalize. If you make an allocation, for example, who has to do with construction, and which has been managed, for example, by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, this needs to be placed properly within the agency that has the necessary powers to be able to carry out this responsibility.< /p>

“It was during the engagement with the MDAs and the questioning of the MDA Secretaries General that these issues arose, and then there must be some sort of bilateral discussion between the relevant committees of the MDA. National Assembly, and that of the executive. And I believe that as I speak, these areas have been streamlined, and by the grace of God by Wednesday, the clean budget will be approved by the National Assembly. And because the Clean Budget has been worked on on a bilateral basis, we are optimistic that before midnight on December 31, Mr. President will give his consent, and it will be billed to become law.”

The legislator also revealed that the Senate wanted to ensure that it strikes a balance between sectoral allocations within the budget and does not exceed budget caps under each of the MDAs, noting that the budget presented for 2023 was already a budget heavily in deficit.< /p>

"It doesn't really affect the ceiling, but in terms of the sectoral allocation of the budget, and of course, you know, as the National Assembly, we are not bound by the ceiling that was given by President. If as representatives of the people, we feel that certain areas are not covered well. Of course, we can make adjustments to reflect what we believe would promote the good government of the country.

"So the National Assembly necessarily, they are not bound by that, but at the same time we cannot allow ourselves to be reckless, because there must be a correlation between the allocation in terms of expenditure and revenue expected, especially in the context of a heavy deficit budget that is presented for 2023. We therefore have to be careful in terms of sector allocation and the ceiling that has been granted to each of the MDAs.”

Please share this story: