Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, says President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to present the 2023 budget to the National Assembly in October. Mr Gbajabiamila said this when he addressed journalists shortly after inspecting Hearing Rooms 028 and 234 of the House, which were expected to serve as the temporary chamber due to the ongoing renovation of the House complex in Abuja on Wednesday.
“I am hoping that the budget will be presented latest by the first week of October,” he said.
Both the Senate and the House Committee on Finance are currently holding interactive sessions with government agencies on the 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper. Mr Buhari presented the 2022 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on 7 October 2021.
Temporary Chamber
Mr Gbajabiamila said that the configuration of the temporary chamber would be done, ahead of 20 September for the resumption of plenary.
“You can see the configuration, it is not just this place and it is also upstairs. So, I think it is about 100 and something here and about 200 and something upstairs.
“It has been configured in such a way that everything is connected and you can see the screens, I can see everybody upstairs, everybody presiding can see everybody upstairs and can see everybody downstairs.
“Where we are right now, it will be ready on Tuesday, this work started in August, and it started a few weeks behind time but for a good reason.
“So far, between August and now, giant strides have been made. You can see the old chamber has been ripped apart,” he said.
Mr Gbajabiamila added: “We will at the end of the day be proud to have a chamber that will match the best standard all over the world; I am quite impressed with the work so far and I will encourage them to double the pace.” he said.
He said the renovation was largely for benefit of the incoming 10th Assembly as the main chamber was not going to be ready until August 2023.
