Posted on: 12:13 Thu, 28 Jan 2016



The Nigerian Senate has threatened to sanction
any Senator who received financial inducement
from government agencies during the budget
defence.

Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, said this at
the upper House of the National Assembly in
Abuja at the end of the 2016 Budget debate, as
the Senate passed the budget through its second
reading.

“… let me categorically make it clear as we have
said and all agreed, there is no room for money
for budgeting in the process. Any allegation of
such will be thoroughly investigated by Ethic
Committee and such allegations where proven
will be met with severe sanctions.

“We will ensure that where it involves an agency
of government, we will play our own role, we will
report it to the executive and ensure that they
take appropriate action in this area. We must
ensure that the integrity of this institution will
continue to be sustained and not tarnished by
anyone,” Saraki remarked.

He asked the Committees on Budget and
Appropriation to reflect the concerns which
lawmakers raised during the budget debate, as
the committees worked on the budget.
He told the lawmakers at the upper House that
they would be under heavy scrutiny in order to
bring forth a budget that the Senate would be
proud of.

“Distinguished colleague, Mr. President has
played his own role, it is now the time for us to
play our own role. Sub-Committee on
Appropriation, I hope we will all take note of all
the observations that have been made and
highlighted.

“Key areas, for the Committee, particularly, the
Committee on Finance and Petroleum, is the
estimate. Very key that we get this right
because if we don’t get this right, there is a
likelihood of we archiving what will not work. So,
I like these committees to particularly be very
ready to critically scrutinize this revenue
estimate that we can all put our name too and
ensure that every item and every objective it has
been designed to achieve have been fully
captured.

“On our parts, we will ensure that starting from
tomorrow, the sub-committee will start to meet
with MDGs and start to present defence on the
budget. The submission of the reports that we
need for those two weeks from February 12 to
February 18, we will want those reports to be
before the Appropriation Committee.

“Distinguished colleagues, as we scrutinize the
other budget from different ministries, as part of
also leading by example, also the budget on our
side, first time we have made commitment about
it to be open about it and to know what of going
to the Senate, to the management and to the
different parts on the National Assembly, it is
important also that we can see there will be
much over sight functions for this budget to be
effective. So, when we are doing the National
Assembly budget, we must take this into note
that we must empower our Committees to be
able to do proper oversight and also it is clear
that our own laws that exist now also need
review in order to be in line with the new
direction of prudence and efficiency.

Again, that
is going to be mean a lots of work to our
committees. So, our committee on Services
should address this issue in the budget.”