President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has decried the level of deficit of the 2022 Budget.

He made this known at the presentation of the 2022 Budget estimates by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja on Thursday.

It is recall that the deficit as contained in the proposed budget stands at N 6.26 trillion.

Lawan, who noted that the level of the budget deficit is high, said both the legislature and the executive should work to reduce the deficit through the availability of more revenues.

“Generating and collecting revenues have remained major challenges in our quest for development.

The recent efforts by the national assembly as well as the executive to challenge the revenue-generating agencies is a step in the right direction.

“Equally important is the recent position taken by the Legislature and the Executive to insist on zero allocation for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that fail to remit/upload their revenues for the 2022 Appropriation.

“This saw an increase in the contribution of the MDAs by over N400 billion. It is my view that MDAs can contribute to the Federation Account much more than that.

This policy should be expanded and deepened to cover more MDAs,” Lawan said.

On borrowings, Lawan said: “We understand that due to paucity of revenue, the Federal Government has to resort to raising funds from foreign and domestic sources to provide infrastructure across the country.

“That is why the national assembly approved the requests for borrowing.

“The Commitment of the Federal Government in providing infrastructure across the country means that the funds must be raised one way or the other.

“Government should also explore other sources of funding for its projects in order to reduce borrowing.”