By Our correspondent<\/p>\n
The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, on Monday called for stronger collaboration between the National Assembly and the media to safeguard the integrity of Nigeria’s national budget from unlawful insertions.<\/p>\n
Bagudu made the call while presenting a paper at the 2026 Capacity-Building Workshop of the Senate Press Corps (SPC) held at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.<\/p>\n
The workshop, with the theme: *\u201cLeveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions,\u201d* was organized by the SPC under its Chairman, Taiye Odewale.<\/p>\n
According to Bagudu, national planning is not optional but a constitutional obligation, and every insertion that is outside approved development priorities undermines sustainable growth.<\/p>\n
He said the Federal Government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has introduced difficult but necessary reforms, and the budget must reflect those priorities transparently.<\/p>\n
“The total 2026 budget rose to N68.32 trillion after necessary adjustments. We must ensure that what is finally appropriated reflects approved priorities and serves the broader interests of Nigerians,” the Minister was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
Bagudu reaffirmed the commitment of the Executive to work with the Legislature to close gaps between development plans and annual budgets, noting that weak alignment continues to undermine service delivery.<\/p>\n
He stressed that legislative oversight and responsible journalism remain critical instruments to detect and expose questionable budgetary practices, including the alleged external insertion of the Presidential Fiscal and Infrastructure Project Cost (PFIPC) which is already being challenged in court by the Executive.<\/p>\n
Earlier, SPC Chairman Taiye Odewale said the theme was chosen against the backdrop of public concern over budget padding and the need to strengthen oversight, responsible journalism and public accountability.<\/p>\n
The workshop also included intensive training on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools facilitated by London-based instructors from Mass Media TX Limited to equip Senate Press Corps members with emerging technologies for data analysis and investigative reporting. ba882a29<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our correspondent The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, on Monday called for stronger collaboration between the National Assembly and the media to safeguard the integrity of Nigeria’s national budget from unlawful insertions. Bagudu made the call while presenting a paper at the 2026 Capacity-Building Workshop of the Senate Press […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18052,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18051\/revisions\/18052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}