The Senate has commenced debate on the general principles of the 2012 budget presented to the joint session of the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday.
Key issues raised by the Senators included non- implementation of previous budgets and the need to tackle insecurity.
In his lead debate, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba said the Appropriation Bill 2012 was deliberately structured to improve on the gains of the 2011 budget.
He said this would be achieved by effectively addressing critical areas of the economy such as agriculture, insecurity, education and power.
Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu observed that if well implemented, the 2012 budget would restore the hope of the people.
He, however, stressed that effort must be intensified to address the lapses of previous budgets which were not properly implemented.
“We need to hold public hearings to enable us have input from Nigerians. If we can hold public hearings on other issues, I see no reason why we should not do it for the budget.
“We need to do something about the time frame within which the budget is presented and the issue of transparency.
“I don’t know how many people were consulted to scrutinise the estimates before the budget was drafted.’’
Sen. Abdul Ningi (Bauchi-PDP) said the legislature should take the blame for the failure of the executive to implement past budgets.
He urged the government to deploy resources toward the true causes of insecurity rather than allocating huge funds to it at the expense of a critical area such as agriculture.
“Addressing the issues that cause insecurity is more important than voting huge funds to the security agencies. More funds should be released for development of the agricultural sector, ‘’he added.
He noted that the parliament’s inability to actually oversight the implementation of the budget is the cause of non implementation. It is unacceptable for any committee to say it doesn’t have the capacity.’’
Sen. Ita Enang (PDP-Akwa Ibom) linked the current level of insecurity to the failure of successive governments to create employment opportunities.
He said the legislature should be held responsible for non implementation of the 2011 budget.
“We are having security challenges today because over the years, we never planned for this generation. A greater part of the blame for non implementation lies with the National Assembly.’’
In his contribution, Sen. Ahmed Lawan (ANPP-Yobe) urged the Senate to conclude investigations of operations of the petrol subsidy before any position could be taken on the proposed removal.
“The Senate should conclude the probe of the fuel subsidy operations in order to know the actual figure so that we can provide the true figure in the 2012 budget.’’??
He posited that there was no convincing evidence that Nigeria’s economy grew by 7 per cent. “In 2012 we should not be looking at growth in terms of the amount voted but on how much food is put on the table for Nigerians.’’