We have your receipts: Did the National Assembly forget all the promises to pass the 2017 budget by March?

President Muhamadu Buhari laid the 2017 budget before the National Assembly on the 14th of December 2016 in ceremonious fashion and with a promise to ensure that this budget will only spell Economic recovery for Nigeria. Hence, the alias: “Budget of Economic Recovery.

The 7.298 trillion Naira budget should have been the main topic of discourse once the Senate resumed normal plenary sessions after a three-week break on the 21st of February, 2017 instead of the non-issues of reading the President’s letters written during his extended medical vacation, trying to compel a grown man to jump into uniforms and whatever other funny business they have been up to since the.

A few days to their February 21st resumption, the Senate President took to the media to boast of all the efforts so far put in place to ensure that Nigerians rest assured knowing that the 2017 budget was a top priority for the National Assembly:

“for the first time in the history of the Nigerian parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate held a joint three-day Appropriations Committee public hearing on the 2017 budget. By all accounts, the public hearing event was an outstanding success. Federal ministers, private sector leaders, civil society organisations and others all participated in what I like to call the ‘people’s budget’ process. Government officials were on hand to defend their budget proposals and answer questions. CSO’s, academics and professionals associations offered commentary on their views and critique of the budget. It is the intention for the public hearing exercise to be institutionalised as a yearly exercise to promote government transparency and greater public participation in the process”

-Dr Bukola Saraki (February 2017)

It’s hard to tell how that public hearing or anything else the 8th Assembly has done since then has been with a view to the speedy passage of the budget.

Notwithstanding the delay, Senate President Bukola Saraki chose to promise – without anybody’s bidding – that the 2017 budget will be passed by March’s end. There are only a few days left in March so we know that hat promise has already been broken.

“This month is our deadline to finish work on the budget and return it to the executive,”

– Dr Saraki said after he met with President Muhammadu Buhari alongside Speaker Yakubu Dogara on the 14th of March.

Now, that deadline has been moved to May. And even then, it is still tentative.

According to Senator Danjuma Goje, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation who spoke yesterday, the National Assembly hopes to pass the 2017 budget by the 5th of May, the day when the 2016 budget’s lifespan ends but knows already that they may have to seek an extention of time.

Roqeebah

Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.

Tags: 2017 budget, Appropriation Bill, Bukola Saraki, Danjuma Goje, national assembly