The Red Chamber of the National Assembly, on Thursday, postponed the passage of the 2023 Appropriation Bill to! Wednesday, 28th December, 2022.
The President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan made this disclosure while addressing lawmakers after a closed-door session on Thursday.
Lawan in his address said the 2023 Appropriations Bill report could not be passed because the committee was unable to complete work on it as expected.
He also blamed the executive arm of government for submitting the budget proposal very late, adding that when it was laid, it came with errors.
He also said that the process of cleaning the errors contained in the Appropriations Bill was concluded on Wednesday, disclosing further that the two chambers have to harmonize the copy to be able to present the report for passage by both chambers on Wednesday 28th, 2022.
In his words, “We are not able to pass the 2023 Appropriations Bill due to some challenges
“When our Committees on Appropriations in the Senate and the House of Representatives started to reconcile the figures of what was presented, the problems became very obvious and they were not easy to deal with.
“It was concluded only yesterday (Wednesday) and our committee secretariat was not able to finish processing the budget for us to take today nor tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday because these are periods that are for festivities, the Christmas period. Monday and Tuesday are public holidays.
“All the appropriations since 2019 till date had been passed before the end of the year. I believe this will be one of the legacies of the 9th National Assembly.
“Secondly, our committee on Finance is this morning 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 2pm today. That of course would not be possible.
“This is the reason: We also receive 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 start the action they are supposed to take and therefore those reports will also be available to us on 28th December when we will be here.
“And by the Grace of God, Wednesday the 28th December, 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 would wish to travel back to continue the festivities with their families can still make it the following day.
“I want to thank all of you my Distinguished colleagues for your support, cooperation, commitment, dedication on all these things that we have been doing as a legislature.
“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 detail for the National Assembly to understand must do so, because its 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 essence.
“Just like we are going to sacrifice part of our festive period to be back here, nobody should tell us that they are in their places because it is Christmas. They should be available with every necessary information.”
