Those who anticipated that the Senate would pass the 2023 Appropriations Bill into law yesterday were disappointed.
The Senate, which failed to pass the 2023 Appropriations bill as originally intended, blamed the Executive Arm of government for not only providing the budget proposal unusually late but also for introducing a bill full of errors.
When the budget report was not included on the Order Paper for yesterday’s legislative activity, it was clear that the senators would not approve the 2023 Budget.
The Senate had gone into Executive Session shortly after the daily plenary commenced, and the closed session continued for 15 minutes until the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, made his disclosure.
On October 7, 2022, during a joint session, President Muhammadu Buhari presented the National Assembly with the N20.51 trillion proposed budget for 2023.
In the meantime, the Senate will postpone its customary Christmas break so that the senators can discuss what has been called President Buhari’s error-filled budget recommendations for 2023.
The Senate was scheduled to meet after the budget proposals were passed over the Christmas and New Year holidays, but that schedule has been altered by the decision to move the budget proposals’ passage up.
After the meeting was held behind closed doors, Lawan said that the 2023 Appropriations Bill could not be passed on time because the Appropriations Committee was unable to finish its work on the budget report.
Lawan accused the executive branch of the government of submitting the budget proposal very late and with mistakes, noting that the process of fixing the errors in the Appropriations bill was completed yesterday. Lawan continued by saying that the two chambers must harmonize the copy in order to present the report for passage by both chambers on December 28, 2022.
Prior to the budget’s passage on Wednesday, Lawan revealed that the Senate and the House of Representatives were working together with the executive to fix any problems.
On January 1st, budget implementation will start.
Lawan further guaranteed that the proposed budget’s implementation will still start on January 1, 2023.
Lawan said:-
“Today (yesterday) was scheduled for us to receive and consider the report of our committee on Appropriation for the 2023 Appropriation Bill. However, due to some challenges, we are not able to receive the report of the committee and the main reason is that the Appropriation Bill came to the National Assembly with some problems and when our Committees on Appropriation in the Senate and the House of Representatives started to reconcile the figures of what we have done and what was presented, the problems became very obvious and they were not easy to deal with, and therefore, our committees had to start a process of cleaning up the Bill first.
“That process, of course, also engaged the executive arm because the problems came from there. It was concluded only on Wednesday, and our committee secretariats are not able to finish processing the budget for us to take today, tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday because these are periods that are for festivities, the Christmas period. Monday and Tuesday are public holidays.
“Consequently, we can only receive the report and consider it on December 28, 2022. That is the earliest, that’s next week.
“So far, this 9th National Assembly has done so much to pass the previous appropriation Bills since 2019, before the end of the year to date and I’m sure that this will remain one of the cherished legacies of the Ninth National Assembly.
“So, by the Grace of God, on the 28th of this month, the Senate and indeed the House of Representatives will all come back to receive and consider the budget report from our committees.
“Second, our Committee on Finance is this morning (yesterday) holding a public hearing on the Finance Bill 2022, and of course, the Finance Bill is the basis on which the Appropriation Bill 2023 is built.
“We had arranged yesterday that the Finance committee will present a report of the Finance Bill Hearing at 2 p.m., today. That of course would not be possible. This is the reason: We also received two communications yesterday, Supplementary Budget 2022 and of course, Ways and Means. So, our Committees on Appropriation, Finance, Water Resources, Agriculture and Works and Housing will be processing the Bills for today.
“In that respect, the Senate will adjourn immediately, so that our committees can start the action they are supposed to take and therefore, those reports will also be available to us on December 28, when we will be here.
“And by the Grace of God, December 28, 2022, will be a very heavily loaded day for us, but I’m sure we will be able to deal with all the issues that Wednesday and our colleagues, who will wish to travel back to continue the festivities with their families can still make it the following day.
“Let me advise the executive. The Bills that have come to us, the Ways and Means, the Supplementary Appropriation, whoever is invited to come and explain, give information or any details for the National Assembly to understand must do so because it is not our work alone.
“We want to do our work thoroughly, we want to understand whatever we are going to deal with and to base our decisions on information, and time is of the essence.”
