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.”
