By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Senate President Bukola Saraki, has charged standing committees of the upper chamber to ensure a thorough review of the 2017 budget estimated revenues and expenditure for the year, in order to produce a realistic and implementable budget for the nation.
Saraki gave the charge yesterday after a comprehensive debate on the general principles of the 2017 Appropriation Bill, and passage of the fiscal estimates for second reading.
While committing the document to the Appropriations Committee, he said the budget must be tailored towards pulling the country out of the menacing recession, investing in the people, and laying foundation for a diversified sustainable inclusive economic growth.
Saraki also stressed the need for the committees to ensure equitable distribution of projects among the various geographical areas represented by the senators, in order to give every one of them a sense of belonging, in addition to avoiding previous experience in murmuring about lopsided allocations.
He urged his colleagues to seriously take into cognisance the various issues raised on the floor in the course of the budget debate, and ensure that those concerns were adequately addressed in the final document.
Saraki also disclosed that the Senate would hold public hearing on the Appropriation Bill on February 7 and 8, where various interests would come and make input to make the budget more people-oriented.
He said: “Let me once again thank all of you for the contribution for the last three days of debating the general principles of the 2017 budget proposal.
“As I commit this Appropriation Bill to the Appropriations Committee and the sub-committees, we should objectively review the planned expenditure and review the revenues in line with the main objectives of the budget we have discussed, which include pulling us out of economic recession, investing in our people, laying foundation for a diversified sustainable inclusive growth and pushing our agenda for a made in Nigeria products.
“In doing this, we must take note of some of the contributions by our colleagues whom I took time to take note, including the great concern to the fact that we passed a law on the issue of one percentage of consolidated revenue to go to the health sector, and to date, it has still not been implemented; the fact that the budget for the health sector is still below the minimum agreed percentage.
“We also talked about the capacity of government to ensure that the borrowings that are promised do come in because without that the capacity to implement the capital projects will be an issue.
“We are also concerned on the duplication of expenditure, the committees should be very vigilant on these areas which we said many a time by different speakers on the issue of computers, cars, some of these items that keep on repeating year in year out.”
Continuing, he said: “The committees should please be very vigilant on these areas to block leakages. The other areas are the issue of independent revenue and to ensure that more money can come in to government coffers.
“In line with our processes for 2017 and budget processes, there are two innovations that we are bringing in: one is a public hearing which is going to take place likely in the week between the 7th to the 8th of February for the two days on the budget and also the meeting with the leadership and chairmen of the committees, which is scheduled to take place today, but I am going to announce a new date for it.
“And also, while we are doing this exercise, our colleagues also raised the issue of equitable distribution of projects. I will like all our respective committees to take care of that so that all will have a sense of belonging and I hope that on this area we would ensure that we do our best in ensuring that this exercise is better than last year. I hereby refer the bill to the committee on Appropriations to report back in three weeks.”
Our correspondent reports that most of the senators who contributed to the debate yesterday lamented the poor implementation of the 2016 budget, and urged that efforts should be made to achieve a change in this year.