He said: “we have campaigned with that and it’s something both of us in the National Assembly have bought into – that we will pass the budget within three months by the grace of God.”
Speaking to news men today, June 14 at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Senate President said however that it takes two sides of government to pass the budget in good time and expressed the confidence that the executive side of the government would like to present the budget before the National Assembly in good time, “say in September or early October, and by the grace of God, we in the National Assembly will ensure that we carry out the budget defence and do the remaining parts of the processes and before we leave for Christmas break, the budget would have been passed and Mr. President would have gotten the budget before him to signed and assent.
“This requires sacrifice in the National Assembly and the executive side of the government that we create a window for budget defence only; a dedicate period and timeframe- say a month of which only budget defence would be carried out in the National Assembly.”
Senator Ahmed Lawan said that it is the desire of the members of the National Assembly that every minister, every chief executive officer of every agency to defend the budget of his agency or her agency before going out of the country.
“That window is going to be available within the one month and that is the only window that is going to be available. After that for example, every minister or head of agency who did not come to defend the budget of that institution, the National Assembly would go ahead to work on such a budget appropriately.
“I believe that nobody would take pleasure in wasting the time of this administration. We are in a hurry; we are thirsty to perform. We want to support Mr. President. We want to see Mr. President achieve those dreams that he has and we are going to work full course and full time to ensure that we give him the maximum support that he requires.”
