The Senate demanded on Thursday that President Bola Tinubu fire any head of a ministry, department, or agency that declines to participate in continuing dialogues regarding the estimates presented in the Fiscal Strategy Paper and Medium Term Expenditure Framework for 2024–2026.
Godswill Akpabio, the president of the Senate, stated that the president should fire any head of an agency that does not show up for the interactive session co-sponsored by the Senate Committees on Finance, Appropriations, National Planning, and Local and Foreign Debts.
It was documents that one of the financial events in parliament that take place before the President presents the budget to the National Assembly is the MTEF/FSP interactive sessions.
“If you don’t plan how to succeed, then you have planned to fail,” asserted Akpabio. I thus remind our committee that everyone who is concerned about President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s success, be it as a serious appointee or as the head of any agency, should be present.
The heads of all the agencies you invited to participate in this session should be listed by the chairman of the lead committee (finance), as this is the first step toward their failure in their respective offices.
“The President should reconsider appointing such a person; any head of agency that sends representatives here is not a serious person.”
“It is the truth, not a threat. I even canceled my appointment to attend my party’s final rally in Owerri today, along with all other commitments I had to fulfill in order to attend and help us strategize how to win.
The President of the Senate further stated that while borrowing for Nigeria cannot be completely avoided, the current trend cannot continue.
He claims that the 2024–2026 MTEF/FSP is being discussed during a period when Nigeria is experiencing severe financial and socioeconomic pressure from most development indices due to events both locally and globally.
“International economic repercussions from the unwinnable Russian-Ukrainian war and the unexpected Israeli-Palestinian conflict have implications for our economic outlook,” Akpabio continued.
Furthermore, we are currently experiencing the immediate ramifications of both the critically important elimination of petroleum product subsidies and the urgent reform of our foreign exchange system. Without a doubt, in order to promote employment and economic growth, we must be meticulous and audacious in our economic projections and policies, especially in light of the security challenges facing the country.
“Although we acknowledge that the majority of our people are currently experiencing extremely difficult times in their daily lives, we are very optimistic that the Nigerian economy will rebound in the medium and long term, providing relief to the majority of our people.” in order to achieve this objective,” he said.
Sen. Sani Musa (APC Niger East), the committee’s chairman, decided to postpone the interactive meeting until Monday in order to give the invited agencies more time to submit the necessary documents to the committee.