• Breaking News

    Saturday 11 March 2017

    N’Assembly panels fail to submit budget reports

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    JOHN AMEH and LEKE BAIYEWU

    Indications that the passage of the 2017 budget will suffer a setback have emerged as the committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate have yet to submit their reports.

    Reports on the 2017 budget suffered another one-week delay after the standing committees of the House of Representatives, last week, failed to produce their findings on the engagements with Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government.

    The committees were expected to have submitted their reports to the main Committee on Appropriation on March 1, for it to compile and make recommendations on the N7.29trn budget.

    The Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, granted  one-week extension, which expired again on March 8 (Wednesday last week) but the committees still failed to make their reports available.

    Investigations by SUNDAY PUNCH on Friday revealed that the delay was caused by the inability of many committees to tidy up their findings because they had unresolved issues with some MDAs.

    One senior official said, “The problem started from the outset of the budget defence, when many MDAs came to meetings without details of their budget proposals.

    “They were turned away and it took a while before some of them returned with the vital details and breakdown of proposals.

    “Even at that, up till March 7, some MDAs had yet to return their budget details.

    “Without the details, there is little the committees can do to write their reports. This has in turn affected the work of the Committee on Appropriation.”

    Without the reports, the budget would not be passed by the legislature.

    Another source added, “A lot of questions cannot be answered for now.

    “For instance, will the budget size increase or reduce? What about the oil benchmark ? Are we retaining the $42.5?

    “Oil production came as 2.2m barrels per day. Where are we now?

    “The naira/dollar exchange rate; are we retaining the proposed N305 or it will change?

    “All of these questions depend on the findings of the committees and the reports they will produce to guide the Committee on Appropriation in taking decisions.”

    When contacted, the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, told SUNDAY PUNCH that the House was still within schedule to pass the budget.

    “Efforts are on and I think the budget will be out very soon,” Namdas stated.

    In the Senate, findings by one of our correspondents showed that some committees had yet to conclude their budget defence sessions for the MDAs, while some of those who have concluded heir sessions have yet to submit their reports to the Committee on Appropriations.

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said the delay was due to the decision by the lawmakers to be meticulous about the budget.

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    Contact: editor@punchng.com



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