The Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriations yesterday gave the standing committees in both chambers a 48-hour ultimatum to submit their reports on the 2024 budget.
The chairman of the joint committee, Senator Solomon Adeola, issued the order.
He said the move became necessary to enable the National Assembly pass the N27.5 trillion 2024 budget before the end of this month.
The standing committees had begun submitting their reports yesterday to the joint committee.
The Committee on Tourism, chaired by Senator Ireti Kingibe, and the Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), headed by Senator Victor Umeh, were among the first to submit their reports.
In his remarks at the session, Adeola urged all the standing committees to keep to the deadline.
The joint committee chairman said this would enable the National Assembly to meet the January-December budget cycle.
He said: “I am appealing to all my colleagues to please – I am ready and the deadline is Wednesday this week – to receive all reports from all standing committees of the Senate.
“By Wednesday, any agency or any committee that has not submitted their report before the committee, it will be assumed that they are giving us the omnibus power to go ahead and treat their budget independently of that committee.
“So, we are appealing to all chairmen of various committees to please submit their reports on or before Wednesday this week”.
From the standing committee reports submitted yesterday, the Appropriation Committee raised two issues: the fate of 136 Nigerians trapped in Ethiopian prisons and the N5 billion proposed in the budget to revamp the Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State.
While submitting his report, Umeh said some of the 136 Nigerians serving various jail terms had sought to be transferred to Nigeria to serve out their punishment.
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He told the committee that the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), which handles such matters, was handicapped due to poor funding.
Umeh said the commission was given a budget of N1.2 billion for 2024, out of which N652.9 million was for capital expenditure.
The committee chairman noted that looking at the workload of NiDCOM, N4.9 billion was recommended by his committee as the agency’s capital budget.
He added that this would cover five new line items introduced into the budget, including addressing the plight of Nigerians in prisons, organising Diaspora summits, and other projects to coordinate the activities of Nigerians living outside the shores of the country.
In his response, Adeola promised that the panel would review the report and find a way to increase NiDCOM’s budget, “considering the very important work they have been doing”.
He added: “We will pay attention to NiDCOM in our reporting stage. However, we will do a review of the five new line items and prioritise them”.
In her submission, Senator Kingibe noted that out of the N7.9 billion proposed as the capital budget for the Ministry of Tourism, over N5 billion was for the Obudu Cattle Ranch.
In her view, She said it was not proper for one geopolitical zone to take more than half the total capital vote of the agency, to the neglect of other zones.
The joint committee said while her point had been duly noted, members would investigate how the N5 billion would be spent, to ensure that it would go into the revamping of the Obudu Ranch.
“We will investigate why we are spending this N5 billion in just one geopolitical zone.
“But we have to also understand that we are still not yet there with this money allocated to tourism.
“We have to do more, if we really want to drive tourism in this country”, Adeola said.
