This is the fourth time the ninth Senate will be passing the national budget within January to December window.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The Senate on Wednesday passed the 2023 national budget of about N21.8 trillion and also the supplementary budget of about N819.5 billion for 2022 and Finance Bill 2022.
This is the fourth time the ninth Senate will be passing the national budget within January to December window.
The Senate, on the request of the executive, approved an extension of the expiration clause of both the 2022 Appropriation Act and the Supplementary Budget to March 31, 2023 in order to allow full capital releases as contained in the two appropriations.
Senate Leader, Senator Ibrahim Abdullahi Gobir, explained that: “In view of critical importance of some key projects nearing completion, it is expected to grant the extension of the expiration clause to avoid compounding the problems of abandoned projects, given that some of the projects were not provided for in the 2023 budget.”
In his remarks after the passage of the budget and other businesses slated for the special sitting, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, congratulated the Senators and the National Assembly in general for keeping to the promise made with respect to the budget cycle.
Lawan said: “Congratulations to this Senate, and let me commend all of us in the ninth Senate for promising and delivering on our promise.
“From 2019, we promised to reverse the undesirable budget circle of where we wouldn’t know, to what is known, January to December.
“This is our fourth budget and our last before the expiration of our tenure. The annual budget, and we have kept to that promise.
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“I want to take this opportunity to urge the executive arm of government to implement the 2022 Appropriation Act. We have also passed the Supplementary Budget for 2022.
“We expect total implementation. No selective implementation. It should be total because this has been what this administration has always tried to do since we came in 2019, and therefore, the country and the people are better for it that the budgets are implemented.
“Let me also commend the Senate and indeed the National Assembly for the innovation, together with the executive arm of government, of passing Finance Bill which always guide the implementation of the appropriations that we pass.
“Previously, that was not the practice. I’m sure this is a worthwhile, very rewarding practice and it will continue.
“We have stood down the consideration of the Ways and Means Restructure. We did so as a Senate, as a body, because we didn’t get the kind of information that we consider necessary as important for us to take a major decision as this, without any letdown or hindrance.
“We have set up a special committee headed by the Senate Leader and in the membership, you have the committees of Finance, Appropriation, Foreign and Local Debts and Banking to collect all the necessary information.
“And I want to use this opportunity to urge the executive arm of government, especially those agencies that will be invited to appear before this special committee, to cooperate by bringing the right kind of information that we need to be guided properly.”
The Senate adjourned to January 17, 2023.