Dr Obende Domingo, the Senator representing Edo North senatorial district says the performance of the 2013 budget, will determine the passage of the 2014 budget.
Speaking with newsmen in Benin on Monday, Domingo said the Senate was determined to give Nigerians the best and to achieve that the 2014 budget would not be rushed.
The Senator said to correct the mistakes of the past, the executive must provide the senate with information on how the 2013 budget was executed.
Domingo said in spite of efforts by the National Assembly (NASS) to ensure that Nigerians gets the best out of budgets, execution had failed to achieve 40 per cent performance.
“Since being a member of the NASS, I have not seen the budget achieving up to 40 per cent performance and I do not think 2013 is going to be any different.
“If 2013 budget is not going to be different, those implementing the budget need to tell us other strategies to use to ensure that our budget achieves at least between 65 per cent to 70 per cent.
“But I can tell you clearly that nobody is going to rush the budget, they brought it late, they took their time to bring it and we will take out time to look at it and the best is what we are going to give Nigerians.
“Our concern in the NASS is that when you are building a house there is a foundation, without a foundation there is no structure, so the 2013 budget is the foundation for that of 2014.
“We should know what happened to the budget of 2013. They have to tell us what they did, how many percentage was achieved and if they were not able to meet with the targets what were their challenges.
“If they couldn’t confront their challenges and proffer solutions vis-a vis the incoming 2014 budget, how do we pass it?
“We must marry the two and that is what will produce a budget of 2014,” he said.
NANS
