The Senate has announced that it will halt plenary for two weeks upon its reopening on January 14, as the National Assembly resumes committee-level discussion of the N49.7 trillion 2025 budget on January 7.
In addition, it has scheduled an open day on the budget discussion for Thursday of this week, which will include input from a range of political stakeholders in addition to MDAs and the heads of the various ministries, departments, and agencies.
The date set for the separate laying of reports on the 2025 Appropriation Bill before the Senate and the House of Representatives is tentatively January 31, 2025, according to Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. He made this statement during a meeting with the chairmen of other Senate standing committees.
The Deputy Leader, Senator Lola Ashiru (APC, Kwara South), and Senate Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno North), were among the principal officers and numerous chairmen of Senate standing committees who attended the meeting.
It was stated that although the National Assembly has a limited amount of time to consider and approve the 2025 budget, the most of it must be done.
The Appropriation Committee convened for several hours prior to this meeting with the chairmen of the Senate’s various standing committees to discuss how best to handle the review of the 2025 budget, which President Bola Tinubu presented to the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, and which was approved for second reading by the Senate and the House of Representatives on Thursday, December 19, 2024.
Hard copies of the budget proposals were acquired and provided to the chairmen of the various committees as necessary reference materials during budget defense sessions with the heads of MDAs under their jurisdiction in order to ensure a prompt and comprehensive review.
According to the preliminary schedule for committee-level budget discussion, budget defense sessions will start tomorrow (Tuesday), and reports from different committees are anticipated to be delivered between this month’s 15th and 18th.
The Appropriations Committee will next compile and organize the numerous findings in order to provide the final budget report to the Senate on the 31st of this month.
“The budget-laying date of January 31st, however, is tentative as it is only provided to direct our work,” he stated.
The chairmen of the Senate’s major standing committees then met behind closed doors with the Senator Adeola-led committee.
