Senators call for rejection of 2014 budget

    
Some senators both within the Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress, who contributed to the debate on the 2014 budget on Wednesday described the document as anti-people, calling on the leadership of the upper chamber to reject it.

The contributors among others,  also alleged that the economic policy of the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was not serving the interest of the generality of Nigerians and advocated for its immediate review.

Others however believed that it was only a working document, which could be subjected to alterations in the interest of the masses.

For instance, Senator Odion Ugbesia, from Edo Central, said, “This  budget proposal may not be the best and cannot satisfy everybody but it can be seen as a a working paper that will guide us towards a budget that will satisfy everybody.

“It could be used to find some solutions to our problems. My worry is the concept of envelop that comes with it annually. To me, it is an impediment.

“We should use the opportunity of this budget process to redefine the role of executive and legislature as it relates to designs and implementation of the budgets.

But Senators Smart Adeyemi, and Abdul Ningi, among others, lamented the high recurrent expenditure above capital vote and the continued depletion of the foreign reserves and  accused Okonjo-Iweala of imposing economic policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Nigeria.

Ningi cautioned against Nigeria depending on the policies of the IMF, the World Bank and other advanced economies of the world, and suggested that Nigeria should evolve an indigenous economic policies that would impact positively on the economy and the citizenry.