Speaker Dogara Calls For Early Submission Of Budget To National Assembly 

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, has said that the Appropriation Bill is a law that falls within the purview by constitution and design of the National Assembly to make the law.

This is just as he called for the early presentation of the Budget to the National Assembly, adding that a situation where the budget is submitted in December, even if you shut down the entire National Assembly, it would not be able to achieve the January deadline.

Dogara also said that in most cases, it is the National Assembly that decides how federally generated receipts should be expended

He however said that the executive and legislative arms of government will continue to work on areas that need improvement so that better implementation of laws can be achieved.

Dogara, who spoke at the Presidential Villa where he joined other state functionaries to witness the signing of the 2019 budget into law, said both arms of government are focused on ensuring that the budget meets the needs of Nigerians.

Speaking on some issues raised by the president on adjustments made by the National Assembly on the Appropriation Bill, Dogara explained that the issues raised concerns certain reductions that were made in the budget and some subheads increases that were made and that such reductions made it a bit difficult for some of those projects to be implemented. 

The president also said that while it is an ongoing process, he will have discussion with the leadership the National Assembly to see what they will be able to do to in other to put that behind them and then execute whatever critical projects that suffered some form of hurt in the process of passing the project in the National Assembly.

Dogara however explained that the issue of timeline of the budget was also mentioned by the President, who he quoted as saying he will align the appropriation time to be like that of the private sector which is from January to December.

According to him; “What I heard him say is the issue of aligning the appropriation from January to December just like the case in the private sector. I think that can really be achieved but it must start with the early and timely submission of the budget to the National Assembly from the executive.

“Going forward, this is a collective exercise. The budget is a law and being a law, and the National Assembly took that decision and we are glad that the president has signed it into law.”

The speaker reiterated that the job of the National Assembly is not to agree with the executive, as there is no congress in the world that does that. 

In his words; “By the constitution and design, the executive informs us what they intend to do and the representatives of the people in National Assembly decide what is priority since they represent the people. It is going to be a nutty area but we will continue to define the relationship between the executive and the legislature.

“Whether it is Britain or US, where it is, there is always a strain, this issue of budget, because it deals with high stakes-distributional issues as to who gets what, which part of Nigeria gets this and that, so it will continually be an issue. 

“We should not be defined by those issues. Rather, we should define those issues by forming consensus that is the part to progress and we will continue to do that.”