..as 44 Senate committees fail to defend proposals

By Henry Umoru
ABUJA — STRONG indications have emerged that the passage of the 2017 Appropriation Bill may suffer a major setback in the National Assembly as forty- four committees of the Senate are yet to defend their budget proposals before the Committee on Appropriations.

President Muhammadu Buhari (M) presents the 2017 National Budget to a joint session of the National Assembly at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja on Wednesday.

The committees that have not yet defended their 2017 budget before the Senator Danjuma Goje-led Committee on Appropriations are Airforce; Army; Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes; Capital Markets; Communications; Co-operation and Integration in Africa and NEPAD; Culture and Tourism; Defence; Downstream Petroleum sector and Ecology as well as Climate Change.

According to a Senate document obtained by Vanguard, other committees are Environment; Federal Capital Territory; Federal Roads Maintenance Agency; Finance; Foreign Affairs; Gas; Health; Housing; ICT and Cyber-Crimes; Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and Information and National Orientation.

Also yet to defend their budget proposals, are Industries; Land Transport; National Identity and National Population; National Planning; National Security and Intelligence; Navy; Niger Delta; Police Affairs; Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy and Povert Alleviation and Social Welfare.

Other Committees include Public Accounts; Primary Health Care and Communicable Diseases; Science and Technology; Sustainable Development, SDGs; Solid Minerals; Special Duties; Sports and Youth Development; States and Local Governments; Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND; Petroleum Resources, Upstream; Water Resources; Women Affairs and Works.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had on December 14, 2016, presented a budget of N7.289 to the joint session of the National Assembly.

Recall also that as part of moves to pass the budget early, for early passage, the Senate had after three days of robust debate on the general principles of the 2017 Appropriation Bill submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari on  Thursday, January 26, suspended plenary for three weeks to enable committees carry out a holistic work on the budget.

At the moment, the 8th Senate has sixty-eight of such committees.

Against this backdrop,   the   Senate last week gave a deadline of one week for all committees to present and defend reports of the 2017 Budget of Ministries, Agencies and Departmen, (MDAs, under them before the Committee on Appropriations.