The Senate revealed on Thursday that President Bola Tinubu would present the 2024 appropriation bill to the National Assembly in November for consideration and passage before the end of the year. Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Solomon Adeola, disclosed this in Abuja during an interview with journalists after the inaugural meeting of his committee.
Adeola, who is senator for Ogun West Senatorial District, said the National Assembly expected the federal government to present the Medium-term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy (MTEF-FSP) next week for scrutiny.
He also hinted that his committee had invited the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Budget, Atiku Bagudu, for a meeting next Wednesday.
Adeola said the National Assembly would try to ensure that the 2024 budget had 55 percent capital expenditure.
He said the 10th Senate would maintain the January to December budget cycle, which the 9th National Assembly started.
The senator stated, “I want you to take cognisance of the change of government on May 29. There is a teething problem because there is a change of government.
“The new administration has a new mantra that encapsulates its vision and there must be challenges. We will do a thorough job on the budget.
“Our job is to verify the budget to meet the expectations of the people. We will look into it thoroughly.”
Adeola said, “We are expecting the MTEF next week and immediately we receive the document, the committee on finance will go into work and look into it. The finance minister and the Minister of Budget and Planning are working round the clock.
“I assure you that we won’t break the tradition, we will have the budget as and when due. We will keep to the tradition of January to December budget cycle.”
The senator said there was nothing like padding in the budget process.
He said, “It has to do with nomination of projects to the budget document that will meet the yearnings and the needs of the people, I would not regard that as padding.
“It is still part of government document; we look into and it has an expectation. Budget is an estimate but implementation is another thing. So I don’t believe in budget padding, it never exists in my diary.”
Meanwhile, the naira sustained its slide against the dollar, as it weakened further on the parallel market, where it exchanged at N1315/$1 on Thursday, compared to N1,310/$ to the dollar it closed the previous day.
On the other hand, on the official Investors and Exporters’ (I&E) FX window, the national currency closed at N801.10/$ on Thursday, compared to the N847.77/$ it closed the previous day.
On the I&E window, intra-day trade from the data obtained by FMDQ showed that the highest spot rate exchanged at N891/$ while the lowest spot rate recorded was N730/$.
The official I&E window reported a daily volume turnover of $100.18 million, which was a 13.71 per cent increase compared to the $88.10 million recorded the previous day.
The arbitrage between the parallel FX market and the I&E window has now widened to N514/$.
Sunday Aborisade and Nume Ekeghe
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