Chief-Whip of the 8th Senate Olusaola Adeyeye (APC Osun Central) has faulted the late submission of 2016 budget and previous budget saying that it gives little time for quality consideration.
Adeyeye while making contributions on the floor of the Senate during the consideration of the Budget proposal, blamed the National Assembly for the failure of previous budgets.
He said that the time within which budgets are considered and passed in Nigeria was too short exemplifying that it took the United States Congress about eight months to pass the budget.
``I want to remind us that this is not the first time since 1999 that National Assembly has given itself too short a time to do justice in the consideration of our budget.
``11 days from today, Monday Feb. 1, President Obama must by law, submit the budget for 2017, the US Congress always has eight months to look at the budget and pass.
``Therefore, if we don’t correct this, let us not blame any President, PDP or APC, let us blame ourselves here.
Adeyeye said that in mature democracies legislators have ample time to take the budget to their constituents to have their inputs before during the consideration of the budget.
He defended the N115 biillion allocation to the National Assembly saying that it represented only 1.8 per cent of the N6.08 trillion budget proposal.
On ways to source money to fund the budget, Adeyeye call on the need to expand the nation’s tax framework and punishments for some offences to include fines.
He said that 54 per cent of the $3.8 trillion US budget was sourced from tax alone stressing that Nigeria must go back to what it did in the days of our founding fathers.
He lambasted committee chairmen and deputies who always protected their sectors and always requested for more funding, stressing that funding must be done based on priority.
He said that it was time to scrap agencies of government and parastatals who have failed in their duties so as to stop wating money funding them.
The senator also berated other legislators who trade blames across party lines rather than focus on the problems at hand which is the dwindling revenue.
He stressed that legislators must be above board and always remember that they represented their constituencies and indeed all Nigerians and not any political party.
``When things go wrong, if you are APC you will blame PDP, if you are PDP you will blame APC.
``I duff my hat to the former chairman of public account who brought to this senate most germane relevant document about abuses in the system but we in this chamber refused to consider it.
``I pray to God that under your leadership, whatever is brought must be considered otherwise God will judge all of us beginning from you Mr President.
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