Nigeria’s Huge Budget Deficit Hurts,Unacceptable-Senate

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan,has faulted huge level of deficit in the national budget in Nigeria,saying it was unacceptable.

 He advised the executive to explore avenues to reduce the deficit  through the availability of more revenues  as well as seek other means of financing ongoing infrastructural projects across the country.

Lawan spoke  at the 2022 budget presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, where he also advised that efforts must be put in place to enhance revenue generation and collection by ministries, agencies and departments of government.

He also said that the legislature was resolute on zero allocation for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that fail to remit/upload their revenues for the 2022 Appropriation.

He added:”This position saw an increase in the contribution of the MDAs by over N400 Billion. It is my view that MDAs can contribute to the Federation account much more than that. This policy should be expanded and deepen to cover more MDAs.”

He also  expressed National Assembly’s role in supporting the executive’s request for loans due to paucity of revenue.

He said:“The Federal Government has to resort to raising funds from foreign and domestic sources to provide infrastructure across the country. That is why, the National Assembly approved the requests for borrowing.”

He also commended the executive for keeping to the new budget calendar of January to December as initiated by the legislature, noting that the early presentation and subsequent timely consideration by the National Assembly will make that possible.

“The implementation of the 2021 Appropriation Act so far indicates that, it is possible to achieve the feat of the 2020 budget implementation. We must therefore work assiduously to continue with that moment. Mr President, the 2021 budget and indeed the 2020 budget provided for significant infrastructure development across the country.

“Mr. President, the members of the ninth National Assembly have kept to their promise of passing the annual Appropriation Bill before the end of the year to ensure that the Bill is signed into law before the beginning of the new year. The 2020, and 2021 Appropriation Bills were considered and passed before the end of each year. The Distinguished and Honorable members of the National Assembly remain committed to working on the 2022 Appropriation Bill and pass it before the end of this year.

Mr President, the Nigerian economy and indeed our citizens are benefitting from the early passage and assent to the 2020 and 2021 Appropriation Bills. We all recall that the 2020 budget was fully implemented, becoming the first and only budget that was implemented 100 percent since the fourth Republic began,” he maintained.