By Dipo Olowookere
Nigeria’s President, Mr Muhammadu Buhari, has informed the Senate that he intends to present the 2020 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly next Tuesday.
President of the Senate, Mr Ahmad Lawan, broke this news to his colleagues during plenary on the red chamber of the parliament on Thursday, 03 October 2019 in Abuja.
The nation’s number three citizen, while reading a letter from Mr Buhari, said the President has communicated his interest to do the presentation to the lawmakers on Tuesday, October 8, 2019, the next adjourned day for activities on the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
Business Post reports that today, Chairmen of the Senate Committees on Finance and National Planning, Mr Adeola Solomon and Mr Adetunmbi Ayodeji respectively presented their reports on the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) in accordance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.
While deliberating on the documents, one of the Senators, Mr Ibikunle Amosun, the immediate past Governor of Ogun State, charged the executive to ensure it generate more revenue to fund critical projects in the country.
“We need to improve on revenue to fund projects, we should change this mono-economy we are currently running. The enabler of development is infrastructure,” the federal lawmaker said.
Corroborating his colleague, Mr Sani Uba said, “Federal Government should make sure our roads are constructed, reconstructed and regularly maintained.”
In his contribution, the Senate President thanked the committees for working judiciously under a short timeframe to get the MTEF/FSP ready in order to pave way for the return of the budget cycle to January to December instead of the old system of signing the budget around mid-year.
