2013 Budget amendment: We're not in a hurry to pass it - Senate

The Senate has said that it is not in a hurry to pass the 2013 budget amendment Bill currently before the National Assembly because it  will take time to go through the document thoroughly.

Speaking with journalists weekend, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmed Muhammad Maccido, PDP, Sokoto North, explained that the amendment bill gave the impression that all the inputs made by the National Assembly into the earlier budget had been rejected by the executive arm of government.

He said:  'The amendment we are working on is just like another budget altogether. It seems as if the whole input of the National Assembly into the earlier budget has not been agreed to by the executive.

'They want us to look into our input as a whole. So, we have to sit down again and re-examine it. It is not something we are going to rush because we are going through the whole of the budget again.'

Senators Maccido, who noted that the lawmakers were  still studying the document, a situation that will make the passing of the bill delay a great deal, said:  'So, it is going to take us a lot of time, like three weeks or more. In any case this is its third week

'I think most Senators are still not prepared for the amendment bill yet because they are still going through it. Until such a time when they are through, we cannot just put the bill in the Order Paper.'

Maccido explained  that the delay in passing the amendment bill would not affect the economy and governance, against the backdrop that there was a budget being implemented at the moment.

He added:   'The time we are taking will not cause any problem because we still have a budget that is operational.

'That one has been passed into law. And it is the one being implemented at the moment. Until such a time when we pass this amendment bill, that budget that has been signed remained the budget to be implemented.'