President Bola Tinubu will present the 2024 budget to the
National Assembly in the next two weeks.
The President will also submit the supplementary budget for
2023 to the National Assembly for consideration.
The Chairman, the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator
Solomon Adeola, who made this known during the inaugural meeting of the
committee stated that the National Assembly would ensure that the 2024 budget
is passed before December 31, 2024.
Senator Adeola said, “I know we have it on good authority
that the supplementary budget would be sent by the Executive in the next couple
of hours to the National Assembly.
“Also in about a week or two weeks later, the President will
be presenting the 2024 Appropriation bill to the National Assembly and as a
result of this I find it very important to call for an inaugural meeting so
that we can know ourselves.”
Talking about the delayed presentation of the budget by the
President to the National Assembly, the lawmaker said the change in government
was a significant factor that should be considered.
Adeola said, “I want you to take cognizance of the change of
government on May 29.
“There is a teething problem because there is a change of
government. The new administration has a new mantra that encapsulates its
vision and there must be challenges.”
Adeola, however, promised that irrespective of the lateness
in the submission of the 2024 budget, it would do a thorough job.
The chairman of the Appropriation Committee noted, “We will
do a thorough job on the budget. Our job
is to verify the budget to meet the expectations of the people. We will look
into it thoroughly.
“We are expecting the MTEF next week and immediately we
receive the document, the Committee on Finance will go into work and look into
it.”
He added, “The Finance Minister and the Minister of Budget
and Planning are working round the clock.
“I assure you that we won’t break the tradition, we will
have the budget as at when due. We will keep to the tradition of the January to
December budget cycle.”
Significantly, Senator Adeola stated that he doesn’t believe
that a thing such as budget padding exists.
He said, “A budget has to do with the nomination of projects
to the budget document that will meet the yearnings and the needs of the
people, I would not regard that as padding.
“It is still part of a government document, we will look
into and it has an expectation. The budget has an estimate but implementation
is another thing.
“So I don’t believe in budget padding, it never exists in my
dairy.”
Olamilekan also noted that the National Assembly will not
allow a budget that is inflated by the cost of governance as against driving
infrastructure.
He said, “The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Wale
Edun, and his colleague the minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator
Atiku Bagudu will appear before this committee to brief us on the action plan
on the economy, the budgeting process and how the National Assembly and the
executive will be working together in the next couple of years.
“Also, it would not be business as usual, we won’t support a
government where 72% of the budget will be spent on the cost of running the
government and only 28 percent will now be spent on driving the infrastructure.
“We will rather prefer a budget that 55 to 60% is spent on driving infrastructure to the people and 40% is spent on the budget.”
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