As prices of food items continue to soar high across the country, the Senate Committee Chairperson on Diaspora and Civil Societies, Senator Rose Oko, has attributed it to continued downward slide of Naira to the US Dollar.
Speaking on what could be seen as another padding saga in the 2017 budget, the senator representing Cross River North, insisted that there is no crisis with the budget, which according to here is a proposal.
Oko made the assertion at a reception in honour of one of the newly promoted Nigerian Air Force officers, Clement Ogbeche, who was promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal, AVM, by Yala people living in Abuja at the weekend.
Oko said the Senate has made effort to ensure that Nigerian farmers produce more food by passing some critical agricultural bills into law.
She said: “The Senate has passed a lot of critical bills of the economy, which include bills on agriculture, particularly the Federal Guarantee Scheme, FGS, that support farmers to have access to credit facilities that will enhance our agricultural outlook.
“The high cost of food is because of the rate of the US Dollar and that affects everything because we all go to the same market to buy. Except we are able to produce ourselves and in regard to what the Senate President has long time said we should encourage and consume made in Nigeria goods.
“Unless we are able to consume what we produce instead of buying from outside then we can conserve our foreign exchange and that will make it that the exchange rate will not be able to skyrocket the way it is going. We enjoin Nigerians to patronise locally produced goods.”
Meanwhile, the federal lawmaker from Cross River North Senatorial District debunked the claim that the 2017 budget has crisis from some observations made on some items with monies allocated to them. Rather said the Senate has suspended plenary to have a proper look on the various items and projection made in the budget proposals in the interest of Nigerians.
“There is no crisis with the 2017 Budget even at some observations of omission and commission were made. It is a proposal and what to be done is to look critically at that proposal on areas we think are not fiscal to national economic development.
“The essence is MDAs are coming to let us know item by item in the proposal and when we find out that they are not having bearing with national development we make a way that it is channelled to other important areas”, she stated.
