The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, said consideration of the N49.7 trillion 2025 budget and the tax reform bills are two items topping the National Assembly’s agenda in the new year.
Bamidele made this statement in his New Year message to Nigerians, made available to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.
In the message, entitled “Another Year of Limitless Opportunities,” Bamidele said that the next few weeks would be devoted to scrutinising the 2025 Appropriation Bill, Tax Reform Bills 2024, and the investigation of economic sabotage in the petroleum industry, among others.
According to him, key economic reform initiatives that had been in the pipeline to open up Nigeria for real businesses, which would create limitless opportunities, would also be deliberated upon.
He added that the constructive collaboration that the National Assembly had been having with the executive since June 2023 was already yielding results.
The Senate Leader cited the multi-tiered interventions by the Presidency and National Assembly, especially the commencement of operations by Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals within the 2024 fiscal year, as an example.
Another example, he said, was the Port Harcourt Refining Company and Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company, which were now back in operation after almost two decades of inaction.
Bamidele assured that the National Assembly would sustain the President Bola Tinubu-led government’s drive to deepen global best practices in the country’s petroleum industry.
“This is the rationale behind the Senate Ad Hoc Committee to investigate alleged economic sabotage in the Nigerian petroleum industry.
“Considering the significance of the committee, the National Assembly has initiated the process to constitute a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives.
“This is to look more decisively and incisively into diverse issues spurring infraction and sabotage in the petroleum industry,” he said.
