As the National Assembly begins consideration of the N49.7 trillion 2025 budget at the committee level on January 7, the Senate has declared that it will suspend plenary for two weeks upon resumption on January 14.
It has also fixed Thursday this week for an open day on the budget consideration, which will entail inputs from various stakeholders in the polity, aside from heads of the various ministries, departments, and agencies, MDAs.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West), who stated this during a meeting with chairmen of other standing committees in the Senate, added that January 31, 2025, the date fixed for the laying of reports on the 2025 Appropriation Bill separately before the Senate and the House of Representatives is tentative.
At the meeting, attended by many chairmen of Senate standing committees and principal officers like the Deputy Leader, Senator Lola Ashiru (APC, Kwara South) and Senate Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno North), it was stated that the time frame for the consideration and passage of the 2025 budget by the National Assembly is short, but the best must be made of it.
“Before this meeting with chairmen of the various standing committees in the Senate, the Appropriation Committee met for several hours on the best way to handle the consideration of the 2025 budget, which was presented to the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, by President Bola Tinubu and passed for second reading by both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Thursday, December 19, 2024.
“For expeditious and thorough consideration, hard copies of the budget proposals were obtained and already given to chairmen of the various committees as required reference documents during budget defence sessions with heads of MDAs under their purview.
“The tentative timetable that has been drawn for the consideration of the budget at the committee level is that budget defence sessions will begin tomorrow (Tuesday), while reports from various committees are expected to be submitted from the 15th to the 18th of this month.
“Afterwards, collation and tidying up of the various reports will be done by the Appropriation Committee, with the hope of laying the final report on the budget to the Senate on the 31st of this month.
“However, the 31st of January, fixed for laying the budget, is tentative as it is just given to guide our work,” he said.
The Senator Adeola-led committee thereafter went into a closed-door session with the chairmen of the various standing committees in the Senate.
