The Attorney General and Minister of Justice (AGF) Lateef Fagbemi has called for increased synergy and collaboration between the legislature and the Federal Ministry of Justice, saying that the judiciary is next to the parliament in terms of lawmaking and judicial matters.
He stated this in his speech at the 2024 budget presentation to the Senate Committee on Judiciary on Monday in Abuja.
He said: “Without being sentimental or sounding immodest, I wish to reiterate to this committee the fact that in terms of the mandate of law-making, judicial matters, legal profession, and associated business of the law, it is the Federal Ministry of Justice that bears the closest proximity to the National Assembly amongst the other ministries and agencies under the executive arm.
“A realisation of the foregoing therefore calls for greater synergy, mutuality of purpose, and according higher support to issues pertaining to the welfare and progress of the Ministry.”
Fagbemi lamented the paltry allocation to the Federal Ministry of Justice in the 2023 budget, which dwarfed the agency’s productivity, while he solicited for greater allocation to mark a turning point in the agency’s activities.
In the outgoing budget cycle for 2023, the Ministry was allocated N3,321,283.533 as capital budget and N4,688,847,054 as recurrent budget.
“At the moment, and with less than 30 days to the end of the financial year, the Ministry has only had releases of N617,456,896 for capital expenditure and N2,734,110,775.62 for recurrent expenditure.
“The foregoing has greatly constrained the performance of the Ministry in its mandate areas, and we are quite determined to achieve a paradigm shift in 2024, wherein the Ministry has been allocated N5,341,356,849 as capital expenditure and N8,860,880,311.10 as recurrent expenditure in the 2024 budget proposal,” he said.
Reacting, Senator Mohammed Monguno acknowledged the task before the ministry, promising that the National Assembly would look into their demands.
