2020 budget will be ready in December, Gbajabiamila says

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has declared that the National Assembly will ensure that the 2020 national budget will be ready by December 2019.

Gbajabiamila, made the declaration at a stakeholders’ roundtable on the 2020 budget in Abuja on Tuesday.

Represented at the event by the Deputy Speaker, Idris Wase, Gbajabiamila said: “We are ready to receive the budget on or before the September 30, and to conclude legislative action on the budget before December 31, 2019, so that we can return to January-December cycle.”

According to the Speaker, the House was committed to reforming the key financial and industrial sectors to ensure that the government lived up to its responsibilities.

These reforms, he said included the removal of regulatory and policy problems for businesses to thrive and for the economy to attract more investors.

He said: “We are determined to address the problems of our significant infrastructure deficits by funding critical infrastructure projects across the country and by working with the private sector to devise and implement effective strategies to encourage private sector investment in public works projects.

Read also: Why Presidency postponed Wednesday’s FEC meeting —Shehu Garba

“We will revamp the national security and policing framework through the implementation of a community policing strategy that brings our citizens and our communities into an enduring partnership with the security agencies to jointly ensure that our communities are rid of the criminal elements who offer nothing of value and destroy everything we hope now and in the future to build.

“The power of the purse, the right and responsibility to manage government expenditure through the appropriation process is the central power of the legislature. It is this power that makes all else possible.”

Gbajabiamila, who said he was confident that the dialogue session would create ideas and strategies to help deliver a budget process that would be in the interest of Nigerians, added: “Rest assured of my personal commitment to these efforts, and my determination to see this process through to success.”

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