President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki on Tuesday emphasised the need for the 2018 budget to be accompanied by a finance bill in order to stop all avenues of revenue leakage.
He made the declaration while delivering his welcome address at the National Assembly’s public hearing on the 2018 budget.
Welcoming the public, the Senator said “As a legedislature, we are acutely aware that modern democratic lawmaking requires the deliberate engagement of the people; and that issues that matter most to the people should form the core objective of parliament. And so, for the first time, the National Assembly is becoming the People’s Parliament – where all shades of opinions are ventilated and experts are also able to have the space to contribute to the fashioning of solutions that will endure”
Saraki said that in order for all areas of revenue leakages to be blocked, lawmakers had requested that the 2018 budget comes with a 2018 Finance Bill.
"It is also observable that non-oil revenue performances have been impacted by policy inconsistencies and leakages. Thus, in addition to our call for improved systems and processes to plug revenue leakages, we had required that the 2018 Budget proposal be accompanied by a 2018 Finance Bill (which has so far not been received by the National Assembly).”
“Let me therefore use this opportunity to, once again, emphasise the need for the Finance Bill. We want government to show clarity and consistency in its policies and to see how these will square up to its financial projections for 2018.”