By Sunny Anderson Osiebe...
Protocol:
1. It is my pleasure on behalf of my Distinguished and Honourable colleagues
to warmly welcome you Mr. President and your entourage to this joint session of the National Assembly.
2. Mr. President, while we
may have struggled with key aspects of our budget process in
the past, I am happy to note that we have made some important progress.
To start with, we are seeing the budget presentation coming
slightly earlier this year. Though, we hope
tosee an even greater improvement on
this in the coming year. But more importantly however, is
that so far this year’s budget process has benefitted from greater cooperation
and consultations between the National Assembly and the Executive.
3. Mr. President, I wish to note that the National
Assembly recognizes however that the pr
The committee has since submitted its report and the National Assembly is already started the process of implementing the recommendatio
4. Already, we have tried to bring the key highlights
of the report into effect within the 2016 framework.
These include:
• pre-budget consultation and engagement,
• greater information sharing and recording,
• Public hearing on the budget
bill
• Drafting of an Organic Budget Bill
• Amendment of the Public Procurement Act
5. Our hope is that the remainder of the recommendations of this report will be implemented within the
2017 budget year with the passage of the Organic Budget Law.
The
Organic Budget Law will provide the legal framework for regulating the
procedures that budget preparation, approval, implementation and even
accounting must follow. It
will bring the budget and national planning regime within a clearly defined framework,
thereby ensuring greater predictability, transparency and efficiency.
6. When the current National Assembly introduced
the Civil Society Public Hearing on the Budget initiative, the idea was to open up the budgeting space by incorporating the Civil Society into
the budget process, thereby ensuring greater transparency and accountability. We are proud to say that
this engagement has come to stay as a crucial part of our budget approval process.
7. Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, honourablemembers,
you would recall when the National Bureau of Statistics NBS came out with the numbers to confirm that
the Nigerian economy has slumped into recession, the National Assembly
rose with one voice.
Through a joint resolution,
we recommended that
you make a “state of the nation” address on the plan of government to
get us out of recession and have 20 important Executive actions th
8. In the thinking of the 8th National
Assembly, our country can no longer rely on the public sector alone
to spend us out of recession. It
is therefore critical that we mainstream
private sector business and investment in the economy. To achieve this,
we must make it much easier and efficient for people to invest and do
business in our country.
9. Further to this,
we are also aware that if we must attract private investments to play
a central role in our economic recovery efforts, must make
deliberate efforts to market Nigeria as
an attractive brand through a very robust and highly coordinated process
of engagements. This effort must necessarily start with injecting confidenc
10. I
wish to reassure Mr. President that the National Assembly would
continue
to seek opportunities to deepen this relationship because we are
convinced it is the only by working closely together that our country
can make the progress that we all desire.
11. The
overarching purpose of a budget is essentially to ease the economic
pressure on our people in general and the poor most especially. The
2017 budget assumes even a greater significance, particularly in this
time of recession. Mr. President, the feedback we get from visits to our
various constituencies is that there is hardship
in the land. We can see it and we can feel it. This situation therefore
commands all of us as government to a greater sense of urgency. We
cannot work magic, but we must continue to work the clock.
Our
people must see that the singular pre-occupation of government is the
search for solution to the current economic hardship; and the commitment
to ease their burden. They
don’t want to know what political parties we belong, what language we
speak or how we worship God. They have trusted their fates into our
hands, and they need us now more than ever, to justify the trust that
they have reposed on us. The people of Nigeria will
pardon us if we do some things wrong. But they will not forgive us if
we do nothing. And that is why, Mr. President the two chambers have taken a position whatever
may be our differences, or opinions on issues of the economy we will all work with one common purpose for this reason.
12. It is in times
like this, when we are challenged from all sides that
we need to develop new relationships and cultivate more friends. No
one can clap with one hand and expect to be heard. This is the time when
compromise, engagement is
the tool necessary for successful collaboration and cooperation.
13. This is why I encouraged the Executive to continue with its engagement
plans across all sections and stakeholders in
the country particularly with
our brothers in the Niger Delta and all parts of the country where
instability is impacting on our collective economic and security
aspirations.
14. Mr. President, you
will recall in 2015, ,
I made a clarion call while receiving Your Excellency’s budget presentation for that year that the
2016 budget needed to be bold and pragmatic to drive local
production and promote made-in Nigeria goods.
15. Today, permit me Your Excellency to reiterate
this call. The
only way we can cut down on our foreign exchange needs, create
jobs and stimulate entrepreneurship in the country is
to promote local manufacturing and investments.
16. This is why the National Assembly injected the made-in-Nigeria amendment into
17. Mr.
President, though we are confident that we are receiving from you a
very well-articulated budget proposal, it is worthy to point out that the best produced budget
from the executive at all times still remains a proposal according to
our constitution which the National Assembly will work assiduously on.
On
behalf of the National Assembly, we commit to work on the 2017 budget,
conscious of the responsibility that the current economic situation
imposes on us and driven by the
urgency to alleviate the suffering of our people and also bearing in mind your aspiration and vision for our people.
We assure you Mr. President and all Nigerians that not even a single
minute would be wasted on our side in the course of getting this budget
approved.
18. With
these few words, I hereby invite Your Excellency to deliver your
speech and lay the 2016 budget proposals for the consideration of the
National Assembly in accordance with Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
19. I thank you and extend the season’s greetings to all.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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