Chairman of Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki, has challenged the National Assembly to be thorough in dealing with the budget.

He cautioned against haphazard working on the budget, saying doing so will not augur well for implementation.

Saraki, speaking in Ilorin, advised the country to get its revenue projections right before talking about expenditure, saying that poor revenue projections often distort the budget process.

"As National Assembly, we need to review the way we go about budget implementation. For example, the key issue is revenue because without revenue, there cannot be expenditure."

He noted that most ministries, departments and parastatals awarded contracts in the 2014 budget, wondering how the budget would be effectively implemented.

Saraki, a former Governor of Kwara State added: "The last time we passed the 2014 budget, I said I was not happy with the way the budget was passed because I believe that we did not deliberate enough on actual expenditure.

"Remember in 2013 where we had done budget estimate that we would be producing 2.5m barrels and at the end of the day, we were only producing 2m, which distorted the budget.

"And if you look at the 2014 budget, in most of the ministries, contracts are just being awarded. So if you are just awarding contract in October, is it possible for you to have implementation? The answer is No. These are some of the challenges.

"If you open newspapers at the end of every month, you see about six pages dedicated to all the allocations given to every local government but do we have publication of revenue, do we have how much the country is making on the volume of oil production? We don't."

He said for a budget to be well implemented, the revenue projections must be accurate, adding: "The budget for 2015 is going to come now and when it comes to the National Assembly, my own opinion is that we should spend time and debate what happened in 2014 before we really go into the issue and really be sure that those projections are right and sustainable. Until we do that, the implementation would not be right."