Long wait for 2015 budget

Finally, after three revisions of the
2015-2017 Medium Term Expenditure
Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper
(MTEF/FSP), President Goodluck
Jonathan laid the 2015 Appropriation Bill
before the Senate last Wednesday.
It was devoid of any fanfare or excitement
hitherto associated with such exercise. In
fact, the president didn’t even put up any
appearance. The budget was laid on his
behalf by his Coordinating Minister of the
Economy and Finance Minister, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala.
That would be the second time in a row
that the president would, in a departure
from convention, not physically present
the budget before lawmakers. The
convention since 1999 had been that a
sitting president would seize the
opportunity of the budget presentation to
present the roadmap, which his
government t would undertake in the next
12 months.
This time around, the MTEF/FSP, which
ought to have been considered and
transmitted back to the president, upon
which the new budget would then be
prepared, had just arrived the National
Assembly when the Finance Minister
brought the budget!
Senate President David Mark has already
given the direction in which the budget
would go. Shortly before the chamber
went on its Yuletide recess, Mark directed
the appropriate committees on the budget
to start work immediately and also
announced that on resumption, two days
would be devoted to debating the budget.
Perish any thought of a new national
budget this year though as work would
only start on the budget in January 2015.