2020 Budget: Lawan raises alarm over borrowing

President of the Senate and Chairman of the National Assembly, Ahmad Lawan, has expressed concern over consistent borrowing to execute capital projects.

Lawan spoke on Wednesday at the National Budget Hearing on the 2020 Federal Government Budget at the National Assembly.

He suggested a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) option to finance infrastructural development.

He said: “If we have to borrow, we should borrow. Where we can avoid borrowing because there is another opportunity, we should take that opportunity that has a lesser burden.”

The Senate President also backed suggestion for the resuscitation of the long term national planning programme.

“I agree that the long term national economic programme is useful. We had it before, it worked for us better. We stopped it and we have seen the consequences.

“So now that we have a minister that thinks that we should go back to that process and we have a National Assembly that is prepared to ensure that this country does better. We should hit the ground running.

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“I am not aware of any request for legislation but if it is the desire or necessity that we legislate, this National Assembly will work with the government to ensure that we legislate on the national economic development plans.”

He also said the ninth Assembly was not only concerned about the timely passage of the budget but also deeply concerned about its implementation.

“We have mandated our Committees to engage with the MDAs. We want the MDAs to give us roadmaps on how they intend to achieve their targets.

“If you are taken 10 million Nigerians out of poverty in 2020, in ten years it will be one hundred million. We want to see the plans by the relevant or responsible Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government on how the 2020 budget will be able to take 10 million Nigerians out of poverty.

“We want these to be measurable targets. We are not going to be asking for stories. We are going to be asking for facts.

“So, we are going to task the MDAs that in this year budget we will not wait until 2021, give us targets that are measurable which we can evaluate after every quarter.”