Strong indication emerged Tuesday that the Senate Committee on Finance will not meet up with Wednesday, October 2, 2019 deadline for submission of its report on the 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
The Senate had Thursday last week, 24 hours after receiving the MTEF/FSP documents from President Muhammadu Buhari, forwarded it to its committee on finance for expeditious consideration.
Specifically, President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, instructed the committee to make the required legislative inputs into the documents and submit the report to the Senate for final consideration on Wednesday, October 2, 2019.
But chairman of the committee, Solomon Adeola Olamilekan (APC Lagos West), stated Tuesday that the report will not be ready for submission on Wednesday as expected by the Senate.
Olamilekan made the declaration on his Twitter handle said that presentation by invited federal government agencies would be made to the committee on Wednesday.
He said : “Shortly after the President Muhammadu Buhari Broadcast, I headed for office in the Senate to continue work on (MTEF/FSP)2020-2023 as chairman of Senate Committee on Finance.
“I was joined by a member, Senator Ayo Akinyelure (PDP Ondo Central), to prepare for invited FG agencies’ presentation tomorrow ( Wednesday, October 2, 2019) . All hands/sacrifices on deck “.
The federal government had in the MTEF /FSP documents, proposed N9.12trillion as total expenditure profile for the 2020 budget which includes grants and donor funding of N36.39 billion.
The N9.12 trillion 2020 budget proposal is about N2bn higher than the NN8.92bn 2019 budget.
President Buhari in the MTEF /FSP documents also stated that the aggregate fiscal deficit for the 2020 budget will be N2.28 trillion as against N1.92trillion estimated and approved for the 2019 budget.
The N2.28trillion fiscal deficit proposal, according to the president, will be partly financed by new borrowings estimated at N1.70trillion while about N252.08billion will be derived from privatization proceeds and N328.13billion as loans secured for specific development projects.
