Barely twenty-four hours after the passage of the 2020 budget, the Senate has initiated a retreat with the Executive arm of government ahead 2021 budget.
Senator representing Ekiti North and Chairman Senate Committee on National Planning and Economic Affairs, Senator Olubunmi Adetunbi made the disclosure at the weekend.
Recall that Senator Adetunbi has since the 7th National Assembly, been advocating for a paradigm shift in the yearly budgeting process in the country from executive solely preparing it and the legislature approving it, to a collaborative template requiring involvements of both arms of government from the stage of planning to that of execution.
He said the planned retreat to achieve the objective of Development Plans that will serve as basis upon which yearly budgets are planned and executed has been slated for next week.
Senator Adetunbi told newsmen that the planned retreat between his committee and the Federal Ministry of Finance would serve as the required compass for yearly budgeting and implementation.
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According to him, the retreat “is designed among others, to develop and build consensus, explore opportunities for technical support, capacity building, and share best practices targeted at facilitating a return to plan based budgeting in Nigeria.”
He explained that though the N10.594 2020 budget recently passed by both chambers of the National Assembly would kick start the return of the yearly budget cycle to January – December he noted that 2021 budget would be more collaborative in vision, content and execution.
“Projections and estimates of the 2021 budget will be driven in implementation by the National Development Plans that would be formulated at the retreat and the basis upon which yearly budgets of the country will be driven in terms of proposals, projections and implementation.”
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