Revenue Shortfall: Senate Backs Merger Of MDAs

Adeola said the call to diversify from crude oil to other agricultural commodity products became necessary given the increasingly dwindling revenue profile of the nation.

He said there was a new economic order in Nigeria that required MDAs to think of alternatives to improve the revenue base of the country.

He said the emphasis at the moment was how best to earn more foreign exchange, adding that cocoa, groundnut and palm oil were major foreign exchange sources for Nigeria in the past.

“We are having shortfalls in daily crude oil production and so we must make frantic steps to bring back the groundnut, cocoa, rubber and palm oil produce to earn more foreign exchange for Nigeria,” he said.

Adeola said the Senate was committed to ensuring the setting up of the required regulatory bodies to drive the production of the commodity products.

He also called for the provision of relevant data on monthly, yearly production and sale of cocoa from the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria.

Adeola also told participants that the Senate would support the implementation of the Oronsaye report on rationalisation of government agencies.

“This will further help the dire economic situation in the country. Implementation of the Oronsaye report would help the dire revenue situation of the country, ” Adeola said.

He also disclosed that MDAs risked zero allocation in 2023 budget over the non-appearance of their chief executives at Senate interactive sessions to make their inputs on the 2023-2025 MTEF-FSP.

“This is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and we have the right to summon anybody, and we can as well take it that when  you don’t appear, it means you do not need allocation in the 2023 budget,” Adeola said.

Organisations which made presentations at the programme were the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria and Voice of Nigeria (VON) among others.