2017 Budget, 11 economic bills, others top agenda, as Senate resumes Tuesday

Passage of the N7.3trillion 2017 budget, 11 priority economic reform bills as well as screening and confirmation of Walter Onnoghen as substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) will top the agenda, as Senate resumes plenary on Tuesday.
Also on the agenda is the reading of President Muhammadu Buhari’s second letter extending his vacation indefinitely. Recall that the upper legislative chamber had suspended plenary on January 19, 2017 to enable Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) defend their budgets before the respective sub-committees.
President Buhari had submitted the appropriation bill to a joint session of the National Assembly on December 14, 2017. Before embarking on the break, the Senate approved the adoption of N305/US Dollar exchange rate, $44.5 per barrel as oil benchmark price and 2.2 million oil production per day as the 2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
During the break, the National Assembly also organised the first ever public hearing on the budget, with over 44 interventions from government officials, civil society  organisations as well as professional bodies.
Although Senate President Bukola Saraki had assured on a television programme that the budget would be passed three weeks after resumption from the break, analysts say this may not be feasible since budget defence is still ongoing.
For instance, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Immigration Service and a host of other parastatals are yet to defend their budget. Questions have been raised over the quality of budget defence this year, as most sub-committees gave a nod to the submissions of MDAs without thorough scrutiny, while others concealed their budget defence sessions from the media for fear of backlash.
It was also gathered that sub-committees are yet to submit their report to the Appropriations Committee, which will in turn scrutinise the documents and present its report to the Senate for consideration and passage.
At the maiden public hearing on the budget, Saraki assured that the National Assembly would pass the 11 priority economic reform bills alongside the 2017 budget. The reforms which will help create 7.5million jobs and reduce poverty by 16.4 percent, is projected to add an average of N3.76 trillion to national incomes.
Some of the economic bills include: National Transport Commission bill, Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, National Road Fund Bill, National Road Authority Bill, National Inland Waterways Bill, Nigerian Ports and Harbours Authority Bill, Infrastructure Development Commission Bill, Federal Competition Bill, Customs and Excise Reform
Bill and Consumer Protection Bill.

 

They will ease the investment climate in critical sectors of the economy and improve Nigeria’s position in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking.
Nigeria ranks 169 out of 189 countries in the overall World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 ranking report.
Similarly,  the Ad-hoc Committee on the Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East will submit it final report when the upper legislative chamber resumes plenary.
On December 13, the Senate had asked President Buhari to suspend and ensure prosecution of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, over alleged breach of Nigeria’s law in handling contracts awarded by the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE).
Lawal’s company, Global Vision Ltd., is one of the companies indicted by the committee for allegedly benefiting from inflated and phantom contracts. The firm was said to have been awarded over N200 million contract to clear ‘invasive plant specie’ in Yobe State.
But in a letter to the Senate President last month, Buhari explained that he would not prosecute the SGF because the document is an interim report and that the committee did not form a quorum before signing the report.
Speaking at the weekend, Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Enyinnaya Abaribe said: “Part of what the president said in the letter was that that report was an interim report. And we now asked the committee to bring the full report. And so when the full report comes we will debate that full report and come out with further resolutions on the matter”.