Senate Majority Leader Ahmad Lawan says January–December budget calendar should not be practised at all costs, saying proper implementation is the most important thing.
The Senate leader was addressing State House reporters on Thursday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Responding to a question on if the 2018 could be passed by December 31, he said: “Well, it depends on how it goes, you know we are supposed to be working on the same page, working for the same people of Nigeria and we will like to see the National Assembly working in tandem with the executive arm of government. You know these things will be determined by what the budget looks like, the estimates presented to us because naturally we always try to do a very thorough job, a very patriotic job to ensure that the budget is implementable, to ensure there is equity there is fairness, justice in the distribution of projects across the country.
"We will like to see that done but we shouldn’t just do that at all costs, we should be looking at the benefits that could acrue from doing that and whether it is possible to just do it at once or maybe reduce the period in two phases or even more.
“The 2017 budget took effect from June this year, if it is possible for us to complete the implementation of the budget in six months from June, so be it but that also requires that we implement the budget properly because these are projects that are supposed to bring development, relief and succour to Nigerians, and if it is not possible we shouldn’t force it on ourselves that we must terminate it.
"Regardless of what happens we should look at the potential consequences of completing it in December or whether we need to extend it a little bit more into March for example but these are issues that when we engage between ourselves the executive and the legislature we will be able to sort them out for the benefit of Nigerians.”
The Senate leader expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of the 2017 budget saying " so far, it hasn’t been able to be implemented the way we thought it would."
