2021 Budget: 20 Senate C’ttees Fail To Meet Deadline For Reports’ Submission

At least, 20 out of 69 standing committees of the Senate, failed to beat the November 18 deadline for submission of the 2021 budget reports of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) under their oversight to the Committee on Appropriations.
President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, disclosed this, yesterday, while addressing the Senate at the resumption of plenary from its five-week working recess.
He, however, noted that some of the committees were to blame as they had issues which delayed their activities during the budget defence.
Lawan, therefore, gave the committees till Friday this week to complete and submit their reports to the Committee on Appropriations, which would present the collated reports to Senate in plenary, next week.
The Senate President, however, commended his colleagues for working tirelessly within the period, to ensure that the 2021 budget was considered and passed, in keeping with the new budget cycle of January to December.
It would be recalled that the Senate and National Assembly in general had on October 20, suspended plenary to enable all the standing committees hold the 2021 budget defence sessions with the MDAs.
The upper legislative chamber had through its Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, Senator Barau Jibrin, disclosed that the 2021 Appropriation Bill would be passed in December.
It is expected that, after harmonization, the Committee on Appropriations would, then, compile all the reports collated from the committees to be considered for passage in the second week of December.

By: Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja