You risk zero budget after two weeks deadline, Senate threatens MDAs


The Senate Tuesday, threatened zero budget allocation to federal government Agencies, Ministries and Departments (MDAs) if they failed to submit their budget details to the relevant senate committees within two weeks.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, gave this directive shortly after the red legislative chamber passed for second reading the N10.33trillion 2020 appropriation Bill. 

He reiterated that the senate will not be frustrated into not meeting with the December deadline for the passage of the appropriation document. 

Speaking further, Lawan specifically asked Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), NDDC, and other such agencies to note that no money will be approved for them by the Senate in the budget if they failed to forward and defend their respective budget estimates to their supervising committees. 

He said the senate would not accept situations where MDAs will be spending funds not approved by the senate, warning that such would be sanctioned by the parliament. 

He said the senate had put Nov 5, as timeline for it to conclude matters relating to budget defence.

He urged all the committee to work closely with the appropriation committee to meet the set date.

According to him,   it was time for national assembly members to show that it could pass the budget before the end of the year.

He however, noted that revenue generation was a major issue in implementing the nation’s budget over the years, noting that the senate would continue to engage revenue generating agencies on their activities in revenue generation.

He said that the agencies must periodically update the senate on their revenue generating activities.

In meeting up with the deadline, the  senate also adjourned plenary till October 29 to enable the various standing committees to deal with the submissions and proposals sent to them by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the federal government.

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