The Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriations on Monday, December 18, gave standing committees, in both chambers, a 48-hour ultimatum to submit their reports on the 2024 budget.
The chairman of the joint committee, Senator Solomon Adeola, who gave the matching order, said the move has become necessary to enable the National Assembly to pass the N27.5 trillion 2024 budget before the end of this month.
The standing committees had begun submitting their reports on Monday to the joint committee in Abuja.
The Committee on Tourism chaired by Senator Ireti Kingibe and the Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations headed by Sen. Victor Umeh, led by being among the first to submit their reports.
Adeola in his remarks at the session, urged all the standing committees to keep to the deadline and by so doing, ensure that the National Assembly would meet the January-December budget cycle.
Adeola said,
“I am appealing to all my colleagues to please, I am ready and the deadline is Wednesday this week to receive all reports from all Standing Committees of the Senate.
“By Wednesday, any agency or any committee that has not submitted their report before the committee, it will be assumed that they are giving us the omnibus power to go ahead and treat their budget independently of that committee.
“So, we are appealing to all chairmen of various committees to please submit their reports on or before Wednesday this week.”
From the standing committee reports submitted on Monday, the appropriation committee raised two issues which included the fate of 136 Nigerians trapped in Ethiopian prisons and the N5 billion proposed in the budget to revamp the Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State.
Senator Umeh, while submitting his report, said some of the 136 Nigerians serving various jail terms had sought to be transferred to Nigeria to serve out their punishment.
He however told the committee that the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), which is responsible for handling their matter, is handicapped due to poor funding.
For instance, Umeh said the commission was given a budget of N1.2billion for 2024, out of which N652.9million was for capital expenditure.
But, Umeh stated that looking at the workload of NIDCOM, N4.9 billion was recommended by his committee as the agency’s capital budget.
Umeh explained that this would cover five new line items introduced into the budget, including addressing the plight of Nigerians in prisons, organising Diaspora summits and other projects to coordinate the activities of Nigerians living outside the shores of the country.
Adeola in his response, promised that the panel would review the report and find a way to increase the budget of NIDCOM, “considering the very important work they have been doing.
“We will pay attention to NIDCOM in our reporting stage. However, we will do a review of the five new line items and prioritise them.”
On her part, Senator Kingibe in her submission, said that out of the N7.9 billion proposed as the capital budget for the Ministry of Tourism, over N5 billion was for the Obudu Cattle Ranch.
She said it was not proper in her view, for one geopolitical zone to take more than half the total capital vote of the agency, to the neglect of other zones.
The committee replied that while her point has been duly noted, members would investigate how the N5 billion would be spent, to ensure that it would actually go into the revamping of the Obudu Ranch.
It stated,
“We will investigate why we are spending this N5 billion in just one geopolitical zone. But, we have to also understand that we are still not yet there with this money allocated to tourism. We have to do more if we really want to drive tourism in this country.”
