Senate President, Ahmed Lawan Reveals Why Federal Govt Is Borrowing To Finance Budgets

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan says that the federal government has been borrowing to finance budgets because many revenue-generating agencies have been performing below expectation.

Lawan stated this through his special assistant (press), Ezrel Tabiowo, who represented him at the third University of Benin/National Institute for legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) convocation ceremony. He said:

“Today, Nigeria is challenged by the unavailability of revenues. We can pass the budget in record time, but when it comes to implementation, that becomes subject to how much revenue we are able to realize.

“The majority of the agencies don’t remit these revenues. They force the Nigerian government to resort to borrowing.

“The time has come for the national assembly to continuously engage revenue generating agencies to know what their challenges are. Where they have targets, we must ensure they meet these targets. Where they don’t meet them, we should find out why.”

Lawan also insisted the Nigeria should maintain a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives as presently constituted.

He was reacting to a call by Senator Rochas Okorocha, who had advocated for the scrapping of the House of Representatives to reduce the cost of governance in the country.