|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Hopes of approval of the N8.612 trillion 2018 budget estimates by the end of this quarter were dashed on Wednesday, as the Senate has expressed concern over the non-appearance of ministers and heads of federal agencies to defend their budgets.
The development comes as lawmakers expressed concern that 2018 statutory budgets of federal agencies are yet to be submitted to the National Assembly for approval.
Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Sunny Ogbuoji, who disclosed this at plenary on Wednesday, exonerated the National Assembly of late approval of the 2018 appropriation bill, insisting that ministers are frustrating the budget process by refusing to appear before the standing committees.
Consequently, the Senate issued another one week ultimatum to heads of agencies to submit their 2018 statutory budgets to the National Assembly for consideration.
It also expressed displeasure that while President Muhammadu Buhari submitted the 2018 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on November 7, 2017, some ministers are yet to defend their budgets before the standing committees.
The implication of the delay is that the budget may no longer be feasible to be approved and signed into law in the first quarter of 2018.
This is because with just four weeks to the end of the first quarter of 2018, MDAs will still have to defend their budgets before the standing committees (sub-committees) which will then submit their report to the appropriations committee, while the appropriations panel will collate the reports and submit a comprehensive report to the Committee of the Whole for adoption.
Explaining why the Appropriations Committee was yet to present a comprehensive report on the budget, Ogbuoji said: “Majority of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies are not coming forward to interface with the standing committees. Some of the ministers will tell you they have a team, they are going outside the country and because of that, the MDAs are not fully ready. And so we don’t have the reports yet. We believe that when the MDAs come forward, our colleagues will be able to finish their work. Some of the committees are unable to do their work.
“When they screen what they have brought, they will ask them to go back to us but they don’t come back. And that is really delaying the work for majority of the standing committees and that is why up till today, we don’t have a comprehensive report”.
In his remarks, Senate President Bukola Saraki who presided over plenary, urged the Senate Majority Leader to liaise with the Executive arm of government to ensure that heads of MDAs appear before the standing committees to defend their respective budgets as soon as possible.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
