Budget, PIB top agenda as N/Assembly reconvenes tomorrow

Speaking to Daily Trust in Abuja yesterday, Senator Ndoma-Egba (PDP, Cross River) said the upper chamber will “wrap up” work on the budget as soon as they resume.
“We also expect report on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which will be presented soon,” he added.
Senator Ndoma-Egba also revealed that work on the constitution amendment bill and the review of the 2010 Electoral Act will be given more attention ahead of the 2015 elections.
Also, the House of Reps spokesman, Zakari Mohammed (APC, Kwara), who spoke with our reporter on phone yesterday said the lawmakers would, “tidy up on the budget as soon as we resume.”
He said the house would concentrate fully on the budget upon resumption so as to “give Nigeria a workable budget.
“When we resume, we’ll tidy up on the budget. The various house committees would have completed their assignments by now, so our major focus will be to take over from there,” he said.
The Senate and House of Representatives had gone on two weeks’ break to allow the standing committees meet their respective ministries, departments and agencies where they defended allocations made to them.
However, Daily Trust learnt that despite the two weeks’ break, some committees are yet to conclude engaging MDAs on the budget defence, which means they may have to do that between this week and next week.
Last week, our reporters observed that most of the committees were running up and down to conduct the budget defence, just few days to the Friday deadline they had.
The budget estimate of N4.9 trillion was presented separately before the two chambers by finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, last December on the eve of Christmas and New Year recess by the National Assembly.