Senate Accuses Executive Of Sending Incomplete MTEF,FSP

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• published: 05 Nov 2016
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The Senate has accused the executive of submitting an incomplete medium term expenditure framework MTEFand fiscal strategy paper -FSP to the national assembly. Senate leader, Ali Ndume at Thursday’s legislative proceedings drew the attention of lawmakers to a statement credited to the minister of budget and national planning contained in a newspaper publication where the minister allegedly stated that the national assembly is to be blamed for any delay in the presentation of the 2017 budget. The National Assembly is required to pass the MTEF and FSP before working on the 2017 budget. But Senator Ndume says the MTEF which the executive submitted to the senate is empty and that has hindered work on the policy document. He says attempts to get the Minister of Budget and National Planning Mister Udo Udoma to make the necessary documents on the MTEF available for the senate have been unsuccessful as the minister has not replied the letter or made himself available for scheduled meetings " if you look at this document called MTEF is empty, going through and knowing that it is empty, on October 16th, I wrote to the minister of budget and national planning and I stated that to enable the senate objectively review the MTEF from a holistic fiscal perspective, we deem it necessary to invite you to a meeting to brief the leadership of the senate on Tuesday 1st, however the minister failed to show up" however the Minister of Budget and National Planning; Senator Udo Udoma in a press statement has expressed surprise at the accusation by Senate leader Ali Ndume to the effect that he snubbed the senate and refused to turn up for a scheduled meeting on November 1, 2016. He further stated that while acknowledging receipt of the letter from Senator Ndume inviting him for a meeting with the Senate leadership, the minister says the meeting was eventually moved by agreement and wondered why Senator Ndume would go on the floor of the Senate to say he failed to turn up when he was aware that the meeting was rescheduled. More pointers to a strained relationship between the executive and the senate was shown as the Senate spokesman Senator Aliyu Abdullahi is asking public officials not to make careless statements capable of setting the public against the national assembly. He says “it’s good for Nigerians to begin to look, are we sure that this government is not padded with some people who want to frustrate it? Maybe there is government padding too" it has become almost a given, for the executive and the national assembly to clash when it’s time for the presentation and consideration of a new national budget. We witnessed this in previous administrations and this trend continues even with the arrival of a new administration. For more information log on to http://www.channelstv.com