Dino Melaye, Senator from Kogi
West has said there is no need to borrow money to fund the 2018 budget.
Melaye made the remark while
wondering why the federal government had plans to borrow when some agencies
were “keeping untilised funds”.
Speaking during plenary on
Tuesday, the controversial lawmaker urged his colleagues to ensure that the
budget is implemented.
He said, “There is no
relationship between 2017 and 2018 budget. There is an outstanding of over N1.1
billion stamp duty that has not been remitted into the federation account yet
we took Eurobond of $5.5 billion; we won’t need that if these funds were
remitted,” Melaye said.
“NNPC is supposed to pay over
N300 million into the federation account, no kobo was paid by NNPC in 2016, none
was paid in 2017 and we say we are fighting corruption.
“It is time for this senate to
ask principal agents of government that are keeping government money so that it
be put in the consolidated revenue. Why are we borrowing when we have money
scattered in agencies.
“Enough is enough, we must make
sure that the 2017 budget is implemented.
“It is our responsibility to
convert this ‘boju boju’ budget to a budget that will be accepted in the
margins of this country because hunger has no political and all of us go to the
same market.”
Recall that the Senate earlier
said it has encountered difficulties at the committee levels, hence, it would
not go ahead to discuss the 2018 budget with a view to passing it into law
before the end of the year as earlier planned.
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