PUNCH
The National Assembly may pass the 2024 budget of N27.5tn on Saturday as the about 541 ministries, departments, and agencies of the Federal Government conclude their defence.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Adeola Solomon, in an interview with The PUNCH on Monday, said the Senate would resume plenary on Wednesday.
According to him, his committee has opened its secretariat, where all sub-committees of the Senate will submit their reports.
He expressed confidence that the committee on appropriation would submit its report on Thursday, adding that the budget would be passed on Saturday.
President Bola Tinubu presented a budget of N27.5tn to a joint section of the National Assembly on November 29, 2023, in Abuja.
The President pegged the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year at N9.18tn and explained that the deficit represented 3.88 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product.
“The N9.18tn deficit is lower than the N13.78tn deficit recorded in 2023 which represents 6.11 per cent of GDP.
“The deficit will be financed by new borrowings totaling N7.83tn, N298.49bn from privatisation proceeds and N1.05tn drawdown on multilateral and bilateral loans secured for specific development projects,” Tinubu had stated.
On December 1, 2023, the Senate passed the N27.5tn budget for a second reading.
The PUNCH gathered that various committees had started submitting their reports after the budget defence of about 541 MDAs.
The MDAs defended their budgets before the various committees of the National Assembly, and the exercise started last week Monday.
The Federal Ministry of Power and the seven agencies under it, for instance, defended their budgets before the Committee on Power at the National Assembly.
Similarly, the Federal Ministry of Education and 23 parastatals under it defended their budgets before the Committee on Education.
Also, the eight agencies and the several teaching hospitals under the ministry were meant to defend their budgets before the National Assembly Committee on Health.
The Senate has been witnessing a high level of activities since last Monday with heads of various MDAs meeting with committee chairmen and members.
In September last year, the then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Adeola, confirmed that the Federal Government was operating 541 MDAs, stressing that over 400 of them were to be scrapped, as recommended by Stephen Orosanye-led Presidential Committee on agencies’ rationalisation.
On Monday, Adeola said the Senate was not going to fail on the December 31, 2023 deadline.
He said, “Today, we formally opened the secretariat to all chairmen of committees and their secretariat to start the defence of their respective budget of their MDAs before the Committee on Appropriations.
“Let me use this medium to call on all committee chairmen that we have a deadline and we will and we are working audaciously hard to ensure we meet that deadline.
“And I want to implore my colleagues, to please, be readily available to receive their reports. We don’t want to act on any ministry or agencies of the government without not having the input of their respective committees from the chairmen of the various committees.”
Adeola noted that if the chairmen of committees refused to submit their budget by the deadline, the Appropriation Committee would allocate funds to the agencies based on its discretion.
