Senate condemns 2017 draft budget, says assumptions unrealistic

The 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper sent to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari for legislative approval narrowly escaped being rejected again at the Senate on Wednesday. The upper chamber of the National Assembly condemned the projections in the documents as unrealistic, even though it said the Presidency had set December 1 for the presentation of the 2017 Appropriation Bill to the legislature. The senators, who took turns to criticise the new version of the MTEF/FSP as well as the officials who prepared the documents during the day’s plenary, submitted that it should be sent back to the Executive to include the “correct” figures showing the true state of the economyThe MTEF/FSP, which will form the basis for the national annual budget for the next three years, had earlier been rejected by the Senate over the failure by the Executive to include some critical details in the document. The Majority Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, had described the first version of the MTEF and FSP as “empty.” Members of the Senate, however, agreed that rather than send the MTEF/FSP back to the Executive, the legislature was bound to tinker with the projections to make the proposal “realistic.” Ndume explained in a written document that the MTEF/FSP articulated government’s revenue and spending plan as well as its fiscal policy objective over a period. Represented by the Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, Ndume noted that Section 11 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 required the Minister of Finance to prepare the MTEF/FSP and lay it before the Federal Executive Council .” Source: Punch