Politics
THE plan by the National Assembly to ensure early passage of the 2020 budget may not materialise legislators, yesterday, complained of not receiving the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) from President Muhammadu Buhari.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, had last Friday, assured that the National Assembly was in possession of the two critical documents. But Lawan, who spoke after a close door session with senators, recanted as he said they were yet to get the MTEF/FSP from President Buhari.
Lawan had promised that the upper legislative chamber would deliberate on the MTEF/FSP as the first legislative assignment before delving into the budget as soon as they resumed from their eight-week break.
“At the closed door session, the Senate deliberated on issues affecting the working of the Senate and the National Assembly,” said Lawan.
“The Senate resolved to inaugurate all the standing committees at plenary on Wednesday. This will be done to enable us kick start work immediately.
“The Senate also resolved to await the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), and the 2019 appropriation bill from the Executive,” Lawan said.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act places importance on the MTEF document and spells out specific details of its contents and scope.
Section 11 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, states that the MTEF/FSP “must not be submitted later than four months before the commencement of the next financial year.”
It also stipulates that “the MTEF shall be the basis for the preparation of the estimates of revenue and expenditure required to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly under section 81 (1) of the Constitution.
“The Medium-Term Expenditure Framework shall contain a Macro-economic Framework setting out the macro-economic projections for the next three financial years, the underlying assumptions for those projections and an evaluation and analysis of the macroeconomic projections for the preceding three financial years.”
Sunonline
-Sep 25, 2019 @ 08:45 GMT |
Tags: Early passage of 2020 budget in jeopardy
