Kehinde Fajobi
Senator Musa Sani, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, has said that President Bola Tinubu is taking a deliberate approach before presenting the 2025 budget to the National Assembly to avoid any oversights.
Sani shared this view during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, stressing that Tinubu’s decision aligns with public concerns about the pace of government policy-making.
The senator remarked that the President is listening to Nigerians who had voiced concerns about rushed decisions.
“I believe that Mr President is now considering those voices that Nigerians made in making sure that the budget he is bringing is a budget that will rediscover the economy of Nigeria, so I don’t think it is late (to present the budget),” he said.
According to Sani, Tinubu’s careful approach aims to correct lapses from the 2024 budget.
“Mr President is doing what he is supposed to do in order to checkmate whatever lapses we had in 2024 budget and then correct them in 2025 budget. So, for me, it is not too late,” he added.
While Sani acknowledged that presenting the budget on time would allow lawmakers ample time to review it, he cautioned against rushing a poorly prepared document.
“You can see since the inception of this government so many reform policies have been coming up, and we appreciate that the economic team is doing their job the way it is supposed to be done,” Sani said.
“We also as lawmakers expect that we shall be given budget timely so that we can start working on them. But we also at the same time will not want a situation whereby a document will just be presented to us.”
Recently, the House of Representatives raised concerns about the delay.
Lawmakers had highlighted a breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act by Tinubu’s administration for not submitting the 2025 budget two months before the end of 2024.
In a motion by Representative Clement Jimbo, they emphasised the importance of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, which mandates that the Federal Government must lay out a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for the next three financial years at least four months before the upcoming fiscal year begins.
The House has referred the matter to the committee on national planning for further examination.