The Senate has suspended Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP; Bauchi) for three months for alleging that Nigeria\u2019s 2024 budget was padded, at a media interview. The controversy surrounding the 2024 budget was re-ignited by this allegation that it was padded to the tune of about N3.7 trillion, representing more than 10% of the N28.78 trillion budget. Ningi\u2019s suspension followed a motion of urgent national importance moved by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, to address the allegation by Senator Ningi. Following a lengthy debate, the Senate resolved to suspend Senator Ningi over what it calls violations of legislative rules, allegations of misconduct, and unethical behaviour for the interview he granted on BBC Media on the 2024 Appropriation Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Nigerian 2024 national budget has been subject of controversy since\nit was presented by President Tinubu to the National Assembly in a joint\nsession on November 29, 2023. The budget which was presented more than two\nmonths behind schedule, was met with the initial controversy of its full\ncontents not being made available to the members of the National Assembly who\nwere supposed to pass it. Then there was the added controversy that the\nPresidency wanted the budget passed soon after its presentation. This meant\nthat the National Assembly which received the budget, hurriedly, without\nadequate information and in the absence of full consideration, passed the\nbudget on December 30, 2023, with the\nPresident unprecedentedly signing the 2024 Appropriation Bill into law on January\n1, 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2024 Appropriation Act was supposed to be President Tinubu\u2019s first\nfull-year budget as President and was to represent a statement about his\nadministration\u2019s fiscal direction and outlook. Unfortunately, the circumstances\nof the passage of the Appropriation Act, the uncertainty around its actual\ncontents and the absence of any clear indication of the budget direction, has\ncreated serious doubts about the administration\u2019s ability to effectively manage\nthe economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the budget was passed, the economy has nosedived and the several\nindices and indicators contained in the budget appear to have been impacted. Predicated\non the naira exchange rate of N750 per $1, production volume of 1.78 million\nbarrels of crude oil at $77.96 per barrel and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth\nforecast of 3.76% , it is unclear how\nthe 2024 budget will accomplish its set goals. Naira value has dipped\nunprecedentedly, exchanging at more than double the budget parameter. The\nprojected rate of inflation of 21.4% in the budget now seems like a mirage with\nthe inflation rate rising up to 29.9% in January 2024. The interest rate stands\nat 18.75% as announced by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of\nNigeria in July 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citizens are waiting to see how the Nigerian government will intervene\nto address this downward economic trajectory, which has occasioned significant adverse\nimpact on the cost and standard of living in the country. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate has suspended Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP; Bauchi) for three months for alleging that Nigeria\u2019s 2024 budget was padded, at a media interview. The controversy surrounding the 2024 budget was re-ignited by this allegation that it was padded to the tune of about N3.7 trillion, representing more than 10% of the N28.78 trillion budget. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3523,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}