The Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Musa Sani, has said that President Bola Tinubu is taking his time before presenting the 2025 budget to the National Assembly in order to prevent lapses.
The lawmaker, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, insisted that it is not yet late for the President to present the 2025 appropriation bill.
Senator Sani noted that there were a lot of noises from Nigerians that the government was rushing policies, adding that the President considered those voices and is now ensuring that everything is properly checked before presenting a budget.
“I believe that Mr President is now considering those voices that Nigerians made in making sure that the budget he is bringing is a budget that will rediscover the economy of Nigeria, so I don’t think it is late (to present the budget).
“I believe Mr President is doing what he is supposed to do in order to checkmate whatever lapses we had in 2024 budget and then correct them in 2025 budget. So, for me, it is not too late,” Senator Sani said.
While acknowledging that it is expected that the executive presents budget to the National Assembly in good time to enable the lawmakers to properly work on it, Senator Sani said that they would also not appreciate a haphazardly prepared document.
“You can see since the inception of this government so many reform policies have been coming up and we appreciate the fact that the economic team are doing their job the way it is supposed to be done.
“We also as lawmakers expect that we shall be given budget timely so that we can start working on them. But we also at the same time will not want a situation whereby a document will just be presented to us.”
With just over two months to the end of the 2024 fiscal year, the House of Representatives had few weeks ago drawn attention to the violation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act by President Bola Tinubu.
In a motion by a member of the House, Clement Jimbo, the lawmakers drew attention to the fact that the 2025 Budget Estimates have not been presented before the National Assembly some two months before the end of 2024.
The House questioned the available time before the end of the year to thoroughly consider and pass the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) and 2025 Budget Estimates.
The House noted that the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 provided for the prudent management of the nation’s resources and that Section 11(1)(b) stipulated that the Federal Government must, not later than four months before the commencement of the next financial year, cause to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly, an MTEF for the next three financial years.
The matter was referred to the Committee on National Planning.