Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Nigerian Senate has vowed not to consider the 2017 appropriation bill to be presented next Wednesday by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly except the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) it is currently working on was approved.
This clarification was made by the Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate, Mr Bala Ibn Na’Allah, while speaking on the possibility of presenting the budget proposals to the legislature when the MTEF/FSP had not been passed.
He said “what people don’t understand is that the approval of the MTEF is not a precondition for accepting the budget, but it is a precondition for passing the budget into law. I want you to understand the difference.”
Explaining what the MTEF entails, the lawmaker said, “It is giving us a graphic expectation of a country and of its income; perceived, derived or accrued.”
“Now, if the President presents the budget on Wednesday, which we hope will be presented, the Senate will now go ahead to approve the MTEF so that it will provide the foundation for us to examine what has been presented by the President on Wednesday as a budget of the nation for the 2017 year,” he explained further.
Mr Buhari had sent the MTEF/FSP, which will form the basis for the national annual budget for the three years, to the National Assembly for legislative approval, and had narrowly escaped being rejected for the second time by the Senate on November 23.
On Tuesday, he had also notified the National Assembly of his intention to present the Appropriation Bill to the legislature on December 14, 2016 and to use the occasion to reveal his economic recovery plans.
