National Assembly gives NPA, NIMASA, 20 others 48 hours to appear for 2025 budget defence - Ripples Nigeria
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National Assembly gives NPA, NIMASA, 20 others 48 hours to appear for 2025 budget defence

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The National Assembly Joint Committee on Finance has decried the failure of some Federal Government’s revenue-generating agencies to appear for the 2025 budget defence.

The committee issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the agencies to appear or risk withdrawal of funding for 2025 operations.

The agencies are the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Postal Service (NPS) and the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC).

Others are the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

The rest are the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), National Pensions Commission (NPC), National Space and Research Development Agency (NSRDA), the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMet), the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporations (NAIC), Airspace Management Authority (AMA), Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Limited (NLNG), Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Bank of Industry (BoI), and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaira.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Sani Musa, said at the budget defence session in Abuja that President Bola Tinubu while presenting the 2025 budget to the National Assembly, mandated all ministers and heads of agencies to appear to defend their respective budgets before the parliament with every sense of responsibility.

He said the National Assembly cut short the Christmas holidays to attend to the national assignment.

Musa said: “But to our dismay, a lot of agencies have refused to honor our invitations to appear before us, for us to scrutinise their performances in 2024 and look at their 2025 projection if it is justifiable.

“All these agencies have refused to honour the joint committee’s invitation.

“So by virtue of the constitutional powers that have been given to the joint committees on finance of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, we are given the chief executives of these agencies 48 hours within which to appear before this joint committee.

“Failure to do that, the committee will not hesitate to recommend to the Appropriation Committee to withhold any appropriation to these agencies.

“If these agencies are self-funded, we will also request both the Minister of Finance and the Accountant General of the Federation to withhold their funding.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, James Faleke, said the essence of the budget defence was to boost revenue generation and cut down on borrowing.

“If these agencies refuse to appear before us, the needful will be done by the National Assembly,” he said.

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