National Development Plans will drive 2021 budget, says Senate panel

The projections and estimates of the 2021 budget will be driven in implementation by National Development Plans, Senate Committee on National Planning and Economic Affairs has said.

The National Development Plans to be formulated at a retreat billed for Monday, December 9, 2019 is designed among others, to develop and build consensus, explore opportunities for technical support, capacity building and shared best practices targetted at facilitating a return to plan-based budgeting in Nigeria.”

Briefing journalists on the planned retreat between the committee and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning yesterday in Abuja, Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi said the process would serve as the required compass for yearly budgeting and implementation.

The committee chairman promised that they would make 2021 budget more collaborative in vision, content and execution.

He said it is upon that basis that the yearly budgets of the country will be driven in terms of proposals, projections and implementation.

Adetunmbi said lawmakers will collaborate with the executive arm of government to come up with achievable National Development Plans that will form the fulcrum for annual budget executions

The conceptualization of the idea by the Upper Legislative Chamber is being carried out by its Committee on National Planning and Economic Affairs, chaired by Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi (APC Ekiti North).

He explained that the N10.594 trilion of 2020 budget recently passed by both chambers of the National Assembly would kick start the return of the yearly budget cycle to January – December.

Senator Adetunmbi 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 involvement of both arms of government from the stage of planning to that of execution.