Follow Us on Google
Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has given reasons why the implementation of the 2020 budget will not fail.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after President Muhammadu Buhari signed the budget into law, Lawan said with the signing of the finance bill and the passing of an amendment to the production sharing contracts, the executive will have more revenue to implement the budget.
The Senate and the House of Representatives had on December 5, 2019, simultaneously passed the 2020 Appropriation Bill, raising the total estimates from the proposed N10.33 trillion to about N10.6 trillion.
Speaking on the expectations from the executive as regards implementation of the budget and releases of funds as at when due, the Senate President said: “I think the tragedy of the past was not the budget being passed in good time, the budget was not passed in good time. The tragedy of the past and could be the tragedy of tomorrow is for us not to be able to get the revenues, that is very important. But this time around, we have passed the finance bill. The finance bill will provide more revenue to government. We have also passed an amendment to the production sharing contracts, that will also provide more revenues. We all know that the production sharing contracts was never available to fund our budget properly. In fact, in 2019, N350 billion was earmarked but we couldn’t get anything. Next year by the grace of God because of the amendment, we are going to get close to $2 billion and that is going to be a mark difference from what it use to be.
“So we are going to work on revenue generation, collection and remittance. Once we are able to get our revenues, we are all determined on both sides to ensure that the budget 2020 is implemented fully and we believe the Nigerian public will be in support of this. We continually ask for the support of Nigerians because governance is not about those in office, is about everybody playing his/her role.
“I’m so confident and optimistic that we will have the revenue to implement the 2020 budget.
We will work with the executive to ensure that the revenues continue to stream in.”
Lawan commended members of the National Assembly for disappointing naysayers, who doubted that the budget could be passed in two months.
Other News
He said: “I take this opportunity to thank distinguished members of the National Assembly who committed and engaged themselves in working on the budget 2020. Initially it looked like it was impossible, in fact many didn’t believe it was possible to work on this budget and produce it in December before we go for Christmas. But the members of the National Assembly decided consciously and patriotically to work on the budget day and night, in fact National Assembly became a beehive of activities more than anywhere else in Abuja. And we were able to by the grace of God finish all the processes and of course pass the budget in record time.
“I also want to use this opportunity to thank Mr. President for also keying in. Because, Mr. President did something that helped the National Assembly, when he said that every minister and head of agency must not travel out of this country without defending the budget of his or her ministry. That worked so well for us because for the first time we have almost every minister, head of an agency visited the National Assembly to defend the budget of his or her ministry.
“I also want to commend Nigerians for praying for us that we should achieve this. Because, everybody understands the implication of having a budget that is predictable, a budget that starts from January through the 12 calendar months to December, that tells you our economy is going to receive a boost, an injection that will see more businesses, employment opportunities and of course we hope that our teaming unemployed youths will now have opportunities to be gainfully employed.
“We also hope that this will also support the private sector so well, we all know that the private sector employs much more than the government. So we are optimistic that the economy will receive a boost from this 2020 budget implementation by the grace of God. I believe we are on the right path.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on his part said the various committees saddled with oversight functions will not relent in ensuring the budget is fully implemented.
According to him, “To monitor the implementation of the budget is straightforward, we have committees in place in both houses, that’s the work of the committees. The committees, both in the Senate and the House, their membership and chairmen were carefully selected and I believe there’s a lot of responsibilities on us to monitor the budget and we will do that.
“We have a year to monitor; from January to December. Just as he gave investors confidence, he also told members of National Assembly that there’ll be oversighting confidence and room to do their work, so I don’t think there’ll be any problems in terms of monitoring and oversighting.”
Asked the driving force behind their uncommon passion to work with the executive in effective service delivery to Nigerians, Gbajabiamila said: “I’ll quarrel with the word uncommon. Everybody has the passion to work, everybody has the good of Nigeria at heart, it’s just a question of being in the right enabling environment, having harmony between the two arms; the Executive and Legislature. It’s not uncommon, it’s a common passion, but are you able to unleash it? that’s what we’ve been able to do, there’s a synergy between the Executive and the Legislature, like never before.
“Many are wont to criticize that because we have a lot of naysayers; many will say we are rubber-stamps, on the other hand others will say the budget has come out with higher figures. So which one is it; are we rubber-stamps or are we doing what we are supposed to do as a legislature? There’ll always be naysayers, but we’ll continue to do what we need to do as legislature and the executive will continue to do what they do and the harmony between the two, guess who benefits. It’s not the legislature, it’s not the executive, but the Nigerian people.”
