The 2013 budget today scaled through second reading at the Senate, a week after it was presented by President Goodluck Jonathan to the joint session of the National Assembly.
Areas that received greater attention in today's plenary include education, power, infrastructure, cost of governance and revenue generation.
Senator Olusola Adeyeye (Osun state) in his contribution said priority should be given to the education sector.
"We must give a better priority to education in the course of next year's budget. Next year, we hope that there will be increased attention on education. As it is now, we can see that there is no minimum standard. Many of the schools are in dilapidated facilities. We also have to establish standards even in the content of the education that is delivered at the basic levels," he said.
For Senator Chris Anyanwu (Imo state), the budget has adequately addressed the issue of cost of governance.
According to Anyanwu, the president has taken a bold step in cutting the cost of governance by rationalizing agencies with overlapping functions, adding that this would enable the country to save some funds.
Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation Senator Mohammed Maccido (Sokoto state) said efforts should be made to curb what he described as some areas of waste.
"When it comes to overhead costs, we find ministries that have about N41million for entertainment, we have ministries that have about N61million for refreshments. The federal ministry of Foreign Affairs for instance have budgeted about N200million for fuelling generators. The executives also buy furniture every year. Furniture that can last for four to five years, and they would still buy it every year. This has to stop," Maccido said.
Senate President David Mark, while commenting at the plenary, called for measures to increase the level of revenue generation to finance the budget.
Mark said: "revenue generation is extremely important because we can continue to assume that we are producing so many barrels of oil, but if we don't touch the heart of it to make sure we are dealing with facts and figures, then we are only talking imaginary figures. I think the Committee on Finance should get to the root of that, so that we know exactly how much we realise at the end of the year, and then we know how much has been utilized."
The budget proposal was however referred to the Committee on Appropriation and Finance for further action.
