Minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, and heads of government departments and agencies Wednesday met with members of the Senate and House of Representatives over the 2020- 2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
President Muhammad Buhari had, barely a week ago, submitted the budget framework to the National Assembly.
The Federal Government’s expenditure budget is estimated at N9.12 trillion (this includes grants and donor funds of N36.39bn). This is slightly higher than in 2019 of N8.92 trillion.
The National Assembly through the Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, had assured that it would intensify legislative processes to ensure the budget was passed before the end of December.
Yesterday, lawmakers, the minister and relevant parastatals converged on National Assembly at a public hearing organised by the joint committee on finance, a committee chaired by Adeola Solomon Olamilekan.
Read also: Mezuo Nwuneli: The breath of fresh air in Nigeria’s agricultural finance
The meeting agreed that Nigeria needed N350 billion to fund the 2020 budget and it was incumbent on government parastatals to proffer adequate financial solutions to reconcile the deficit.
Parastatals were charged to submit their official positions to the committee for onward considerations.
In his welcome speech, Adeola explained that the hearing was aimed at evolving the financial transactions to correct anomalies and block revenue leakage.
He said, “The committee is poised o ensure that revenue collected is appropriately used in the development of the country.”
The Senate president, while declaring the event open, said the hearing “was to bring understanding on how to eradicate leakages and manage resources and channel them to greater infrastructural development.”
According to Lawan, Nigeria needs N350 billion to fund the 2020 budget and it is one of measures that Senate has moved to review the production-sharing contract, PSC to recover N7 trillion the Federal Government lost in petroleum contracts.
