Senate Finance Committee Gets A Week To Consider 2020-2022 MTEF, FSP

Nigeria's upper legislative chamber has sent the government 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) documents to its Committee on Finance and give it one week to conclude work on the paper.

The committee headed by Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Lagos West) was given one week to come up with a report.
The Senate had on Wednesday received an executive communication from President Muhammadu Buhari for consideration of the MTEF/FSP.
The 2020–2022 MTEF/FSP was laid by the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi, and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance for legislative work.

“The document is hereby referred to the Senate Committee on Finance for further legislative action and they should lay their report before the Senate on Wednesday next week,” the President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan said on the floor of the red chamber on Thursday.

Recall that President Buhari had in a letter on the MTEF/FSP stated that key developments of the global and domestic environments were taken into consideration in the preparation of the MTEF/FSP.
“The Government strives to ensure that estimated revenues are not only realistic, but also reasonably challenging in the face of its significantly constrained fiscal space.
“Planned spending has been set at prudent and sustainable levels consistent with government’s overall developmental objectives as set out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
“Given our shared objective of returning the budget to a predictable January – December fiscal year, with effect from 2020, I hereby forward the 2020/2022 FSP to the Distinguished Senate and trust that it would be extensively considered in order to facilitate the 2020 MTEF budget preparation,” the President said.

Hopefully, the 2020 budget would be presented to the joint session of the National Assembly early next month by the president or his representative.