Senate To Suspend Plenary For Two Weeks To Focus On 2025 Budget Review.
The Senate has announced a suspension of plenary sessions for two weeks beginning January 14, 2025, to allow for detailed committee-level reviews of the proposed N49.7 trillion budget for 2025. This decision was revealed by Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, during a meeting with his committee counterparts on Monday.
Adeola detailed that an open day for public and stakeholder engagement on the budget is scheduled for Thursday, January 9, where presentations from various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) will be heard. He further specified that January 31 has been pencilled in as the provisional date for the presentation of committee reports on the 2025 Appropriation Bill before both chambers of the National Assembly, although this timeline could be adjusted based on the progression of discussions.
The meeting, which saw the participation of key figures like the Deputy Leader, Senator Lola Ashiru (APC, Kwara South), and the Senate Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno North), highlighted the urgency yet the necessity of a meticulous approach to the budget process.
“Following the presentation of the 2025 budget by President Bola Tinubu on December 18, 2024, and its subsequent second reading in both chambers on December 19, hard copies of the proposals have been distributed to committee chairmen as reference documents for the budget defense sessions,” Adeola explained.
The outlined schedule includes:
January 9: Open day for stakeholder inputs.
January 9–18: Budget defense sessions with MDAs.
January 15–18: Submission of reports by various committees.
January 19–30: Collation and review of reports by the Appropriations Committee.
January 31: Tentative date for laying the final report before the Senate and House.
Adeola emphasized the balance needed between expediting the process and ensuring thorough scrutiny, stating, “The 31st of January is a tentative date meant to guide our work.”
Following his briefing to the press, Senator Adeola and the committee chairs moved into a closed-door session to further strategize the approach to the budget review.
This suspension reflects the Senate’s commitment to a comprehensive analysis of the budget proposals, ensuring that the fiscal plan for 2025 is both robust and reflective of the nation’s needs.
