SAN FRANCISCO, March 05, (THEWILL) – The Ministry of Budget and National Planning has denied claims that government Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) are responsible for the delay in the passage of the 2018 appropriation bill.
THEWILL recalls that the Senate, last week, accused the MDAs of frustrating efforts to pass the budget.
According to Senator Sunny Ogbuoji, Vice-Chairman of Senate Appropriation Committee, the Committee was having difficulty harmonising reports on the budget because most of the sub-committees on the 2018 budget have huge challenges with the MDAs.
Responding to the claim, the Budget Ministry insisted that the MDAs, “to the best of our knowledge”, have been forthcoming in the budget defence sessions.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Director-General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, who denied reports that the budget was submitted to the lawmakers without details for some MDAs.
“In the course of its review of the budget proposals, the NASS normally invites the MDAs to appear before them to defend the president’s budget submissions,” the statement read.
“Given the seriousness the presidency attaches to getting the 2018 budget passed so it could earnestly focus on achieving the goals set out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017-20 (ERGP), which formed the basis of the budget, it had directed heads of Ministries and extra-ministerial agencies to attend to any requests for meetings/information by the national assembly (NASS) with despatch.
“To the best of our knowledge, this directive has been complied with.”
The statement however, added that should the National Assembly have any issues with the attendance of any of the MDAs, the Minister, Udoma Udoma, has indicated that he is available to liaise with the particular MDA to ensure full cooperation with NASS.
