The Senator representing Kwara Central senatorial district  and chairman, Senate committee on Environment and Ecology, Bukola Saraki has observed  a lacuna in the 2014 budget that may hinder its effective implementation. The Senate had on Wednesday, passed the 2014 Appropriation Act.

Saraki in a statement he personally signed, said the Appropriation Act did not consider oil production variation, which he described as  a valuable indicator of the nation’s revenue base.

The statement read in part : "Today at the plenary, the Senate considered and passed the 2014 Appropriation Act. During my contribution on the floor of the Senate on the consideration of the report, I drew the attention of the Senate to a lacuna in the budget, which I considered critical to the effective implementation of the budget. My intervention is simple.

"The Appropriation Act we passed today (Wednesday) did not consider a valuable indicator of our revenue base- oil production variation. In other words, our national budget is predicated on oil production and price. So much emphasis has however, been placed on the bench marked price but little consideration on the production side. In recent times, we have witnessed massive fluctuations in the production level with production going down sharply and other times going up.

"We have seen production fluctuate from 2.1mbpd to 2.5mbpd and back to 1.8mbpd to 1.9mbpd, all within two years. We have budgeted for a baseline production figure of 2.5mbpd and ended up with 2.1mbpd average. All of these have impacted on the implementation of the budget significantly. This throws up a lacuna in the budget implementation process which now raises few questions. Some of which are; What then happens if there is a significant drop in production?  What happens if there is a significant improvement in the production levels?"