Following the controversies that trailed the 2016 budget, the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, has assured that there is no padding in the 2017 Budget.
BudgIT, a civic organisation, has forwarded a long list containing 590 items it considered “frivolous” in the 2017 budget proposal to the leadership of the National Assembly.
The leadership of the National Assembly has issued a working document to chairmen of the various committees directing them to thoroughly examine all allocations in the 2017 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Some of these outrageous proposals were blamed on “budget padding” by either ministry officials or the National Assembly. And the presidency promised that this would not be repeated in subsequent budgets. Many people expected that the change promised by the administration would reflect in the 2017. But a close scrutiny of the 2017 budget proposal shows that no clean-up was carried out on the budget, especially that of State House Headquarters.
As the Senate gets ready to begin the consideration of the 2017 budget, the lawmakers on Wednesday approved the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Fiscal Strategy Paper, MTEF/FSP, which was sent to the senate by President Muhammadu Buhari last year.