By Naomi Uzor

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, has commended the Senate’s decision to cut the 2015 National Assembly (N/A) budget by 25 per cent (N37.5 billion) from N150 billion to N112.5 billion.

The President of LCCI, Alhaji Remi Bello, in a statement said, “The chamber commends the outcome of the deliberations of the Senate on the 2015 Draft Budget, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework [MTEF] and the Fiscal Strategy Paper [FSP], as many of the decisions are consistent with current realities and desired spending priorities for national development.”

Continuing, he said “We Commend the Senate’s decision to cut the 2015 National Assembly budget by 25 per cent (N37.5 billion) from N150 billion to N112.5 billion. This will definitely free up resources to finance other priorities. . The increase of the capital budget from N633 billion to N700 billion is good news. However, this figure remains grossly inadequate in the light of the huge infrastructure deficit in the country and the urgent need to build a robust and sustainable non-oil economy. The senate’s decision to reduce the recurrent expenditure by N116 billion from N2.61 to N2.5 trillion is a welcome development. Although a more drastic reduction in recurrent budget was desirable”.

He further stated that the chamber endorses and commends the stance of the senate on the provision for the contentious Service Wide Vote in the draft 2015 budget, adding that, the decision to scrap this provision is salutary in the light of the transparency issues that have marred the Service Wide Vote over the years.

According to him, “the Chamber is in agreement with the Senate that it is better to devolve the responsibilities defined under the service wide vote to the relevant MDAs for ease of tracking and performance measurement.

“We note and applaud the Senate’s decision to put an end to the duplications in the budgetary provisions for amnesty programme and the Ministry of Niger Delta and the decision to consolidate all such activities in the Niger Delta Ministry.

“It is desirable to streamline all forms of overlap between the MDAs and consider the option of consolidating most of the overlapping activities. This will save the nation a great deal of financial and human resources.”