By Comfort Olayinka
The spokesperson of the Nigeria’s House of Representatives Hon. Akin Rotimi (Jnr) has stated that the house is working tirelessly without delay to expedite legislative actions in passing the 2024 Appropriation Bill
Hon. Akin said the move was a follow up to the mandate given by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to sustain the January-December budget cycle system.
President Tinubu had on Wednesday presented a record N27 trillion as the proposed budget for 2024, before a joint session of the senate and House of Representatives.
Tinubu called on lawmakers to speed up the consideration of the budget and ensure that the Appropriation Bill is passed before January 2024.
The House held plenary on Friday as against its usual rules of seating days and began a debate on the general principles of the Appropriation Bill.
The Bill passed second reading during plenary on Friday after an extensive two-day debate by the Lawmakers.
According to a statement signed by the House Spokesperson on Friday night, he assured Nigerians that the National Assembly would do everything within its powers to speed up legislative activities on the Bill.
He said “Following the presentation of the 2024 Appropriation Bill by H.E. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Wednesday, November 29, 2023, legislative action on the bill has commenced in earnest.
“The House of Representatives held plenary on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1, 2023, to debate the bill extensively, further to which the bill passed Second Reading, and was committed to the House Committee on Appropriation, he further said.
The lawmaker added that, further legislative steps would be taken on Saturday, December 2, 2023, including a briefing by the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, to guide the leadership of all House Standing Committees on the standardised process of scrutiny and consideration of the budget proposal, as well as the process of engaging the Ministries, Departments and Agencies for budget defence.
“The House Committee on Appropriation has further released the Sectoral Allocations for due scrutiny”, he also added.
He assured that the budget defence by MDAs is set to begin early next week, the Spokesperson also assured that, “in line with our Legislative Agenda, the 10th Assembly of the House of Representatives remains committed to ensuring a transparent, inclusive, and thorough process of budget consideration”.
