• Sets January 31 for presentation of report
From Ndubuisi Orji and Adesuwa Tsan, Abuja
Both chambers of the National Assembly have announced plans to commence consideration of the 2025 N49.7 trillion budget with budget defence meetings between the Appropriations, Finance and other relevant committees of both Houses and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government today.
The report on the budget is scheduled to be laid on January 31 before the respective chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Senate, yesterday, announced that it would suspend plenary for two weeks upon resumption from its Christmas and New Year break on January 14, while it is open day for various stakeholders to make input in the budget will hold on Thursday.
These were disclosed by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Ogun West) during meeting with chairmen of other standing committees at the National Assembly.
Present at the meeting were chairmen of Senate Standing Committees and Principal officers including the Deputy Leader, Senator Lola Ashiru (APC Kwara South) and Senate Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC Borno North).
According to Adeola, though the timeframe for consideration and passage of the budget by the National Assembly is short, the lawmakers will ensure the work is completed within the timeframe.
“Before this meeting with chairmen of the various standing committees in the Senate, the Appropriation Committee met for several hours on best way to handle the consideration of the 2025 budget which was presented to the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 by President Bola Tinubu and passed for second reading by both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Thursday, December 19, 2024.
“For expeditious and thorough consideration, hard copies of the budget proposals were obtained and already given to chairmen of the various committees as required reference documents during budget defence sessions with heads of MDAs under their preview.
“The tentative time table that has been drawn for consideration of the budget at committee level is that budget defence sessions begin from tomorrow (Tuesday), while reports from various committees are expected to be submitted from 15th to 18th of this month.
“Afterwards, collation and tidying up of the various reports, will be done by the appropriation committee with the hope of laying the final report on the budget to the Senate on 31st of this month.
“However, the 31st of January, fixed for laying of the budget, is tentative as it is just given to guide our working.”
Meanwhile, Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abubakar Kabir Bichi, also assured that the budget defence would be thorough and the exercise would be completed on January 17 to enable the Appropriation Committee harmonise and submit a report to the parliament by January ending.
“We are going to study the budget; all our committees will study the budget. I believe the budget is for Nigerians, for our development – infrastructure and other important things and I am sure Nigerians will be happy with it.
“We just had an integration meeting today for the 2025 appropriation bills which you have been aware that the president has presented the budget to us and by tomorrow we’ll start the budget defense by all the MDAs from tomorrow to the 17th we are going to do our budget defense and we will likely harmonize by January 22.
“But what we do first is complete our reports. Now we are going to study the budget, all our committees will study the budget and I believe the budget is for Nigerians, it’s for development infrastructures and other important things and I’m sure Nigeria will be happy with it.”