The Senate has threatened to allocate zero budgets to all federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies yet to submit themselves for defence of their 2017 budgets.
Senate President Bukola Saraki gave the warning on Wednesday after suspending plenary for the rest of this week to allow for the conduct of the remaining budget defence exercise.
TVC News Sumner Sambo reports that the upper chamber is looking at passing the 2017 budget in mid-March.
The Senate says it is working day and night to ensure the smooth passage of the 2017 budget for implementation of the Federal Government’s economic growth and recovery strategy.
To ensure early completion in mid-March, Senate President Bukola Saraki stepped down plenary for the remaining part of this week to allow committees conclude the budget defence exercise by ministries and agencies.
The Senate President says MDA’s that fail to appear before Senate committees this week would have zero budget allocations in the 2017 fiscal year.
Senators say the failure of Ministers and Chief Executive Officers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to appear for budget defence means the executive and not the legislature should be held responsible if the budget is not passed in March.
