15th October, 2019
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday issued two weeks deadline to Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to defend their budget before its Standing Committees.
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said any agency that refused to appear before the relevant committee to defend its budget during the period would not have revenue allocation for next year.
However, the Senate debated expensively on President Muhammadu Buhari’s proposed budget of N10.33 trillion on Tuesday.
According to Senator Ajayi Boroffice, the Federal Government should bring back the nation’s cocoa and groundnut pyramids in the north and that more attention should be paid to technology.
Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege said “For this budget to succeed, certain things must be put in place; that is an enabling environment. Oil companies should relocate their offices to the oil producing areas to be able to create jobs for our people & it would enhance non-disruption from our youths. We also have mineral deposits aside oil, this must be looked into to increase revenue.”
Senator Tolu Adebiyi said “Government needs to bring more private sectors to capital projects. The sector should be opened up for investors to come in. The VAT of 7.5% does not look excessive. The government needs to do asset re-engineering to yield more revenue.”
Senator Rochas Okorocha, in his contribution said “It is embarrassing for our youths to be seen sitting down consuming instead of producing. Budget should support the productive sector of our economy.”
In his contribution, Senator Sabo Mohammed said “I want to look at 4 key sectors. Government should hands off most of capital projects and engage the private sector in partnership and generate revenue.
“The second is the power sector, without power you cannot run industries and year in year out we keep complaining of power generation.
“The third is the agricultural sector, we need to look at agriculture, 70% of our employment is gotten from agriculture.
“The last is the financial sector, we need to sit down and look into the financial sector critically, most of our banks require specific addresses where collaterals are located before giving out loans.”
Speaking, Senator Bala Na’allah said the increment in VAT was strategic, as it was done insuch a way that the rich was taxed to enrich the poor.
“Federal Government should have a look at the way we budget in this country, we need to begin by redirecting the resources of the country to ensure that every citizen benefits from the budget,” Na’allah added.
On his part, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu said “The industrial output is very low and it is very low because if you do not have high input you cannot get high output.
“Manufacturing sector would bring back the life of the economy, I believe that agriculture and manufacturing sectors have a great role to play but they’ve been downplayed.
“The most important things in the budget are security and power, Government should review the contracts of those running the power sector.”
Speaking, Lawan said the general idea was to have a budget that was open and useful to the people of Nigeria, saying that “We should up our game as legislators. We have to continually engage with revenue generating agencies every quarter and come up with a schedule between now and end of next year.
“We need to look at how we can streamline our agencies, not to lay off people but to know when they do not act in accordance to why they were set up.”
“We also have to look into public private partnerships into building of roads, railways etc. we also have to do more to decrease unemployment. We have to look into the diversification of our economy. With determination, we can make things work.”