The Senate, on Thursday, pledged to pass the N13.08 trillion 2021 budget proposal on December 3, 2020.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Barau Jibrin, disclosed this in Abuja at a brief with chairmen of Standing Committees.
This is as the 2021 Appropriation Bill passed second reading after a three-day debate on the general principle of the fiscal document
Jibrin said the budget hearing would begin on Friday, 16 October, 2020.
He announced that there would be a joint public hearing on 9th – 10th November 2020, to afford Nigerians the opportunity to air their views on the budget estimate.
He said the sub-committees were expected to submit harmonized reports to the Appropriation Committee between November 11 and 18, 2020.
Senators, during debate, faulted poor revenue generation by government agencies, stressed the need for the government to be serious with diversifying its revenue sources, build infrastructure and cut down the cost of governance, which they said is consuming the large percent of the budget.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, blamed the country’s low revenue earnings on the failure of revenue agencies to remit all sums to the Federation Account after collection.
“There are many agencies of government that are supposed to be generating revenues and they do so, but they don’t remit all that they are supposed to,” he said.
He said the relevant committees would interface on a monthly basis with revenue generating agencies to evaluate their performance and device ways on how same could be improved where they underperformed or failed to meet revenue targets.
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