Senate to hold public hearing on 2022 Budget Estimate

The Senate  through its committee on Appropriations has assured Nigerians that it will judiciously examine and work on the 16.39 trillion naira 2022 budget estimate recently submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Barau Jibrin stated this to newsmen shortly after the committee’s first meeting on Thursday.

He disclosed that modalities for the defence of the budget by ministries, departments and agencies of government which begins were discussed.

“You know our democracy is getting older, year in, year out, we are getting more experienced in respect to how we deal with processes; legislative processes, so you should expect that we will do better becuase we are gaining more experience” Jibrin stated.

“Probably we are going to improve on what we have done last year, as it applies to processing of appropriation of bills which has been going on since the inception of democracy in 1999 to date” he said.

The Kano North Senator State d that the general public will be involved in the assessment and passage of the 2022 budget estimate through a public hearing.

“The public hearing is going to hold this year, its a very good arrangement where people come to ventilate their views about the budget”

“The senate president is determined to ensure that it happens, he has asked me to prepare to make sure that we hold that yearly gathering.

“Probably last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was so severe that we couldnt hold the public hearing, but this year, having a situation that can permit that to be done, we gonna do that, we will do it.” he said.

The upper legislative chamber had taken a month break from plenary to begin consideration of the 2022 appropriation Bill which is expected to be passed before the end of the year in order for the January-December budget cycle to be maintained.