There
were indications on Sunday that the National Assembly’s peace moves with
the executive over the 2016 budget crisis had flopped.
It was learnt that as part of the peace moves, the
National Assembly had, on Saturday, reached out to the executive and asked
President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the document and then send a supplementary
budget to the lawmakers.
It
was gathered that the President did not accept the suggestion against the
backdrop that the distortions in the budget discovered in the document transmitted
by the National Assembly were too many.
A
minister, who confided in on the issue said both arms of government had been
discussing the issue, but the President had been advised by members of his
cabinet not to sign the appropriation bill.
“The
National Assembly has initiated some peace moves. The lawmakers have suggested
that the budget should be signed by the President before he will send a
supplementary budget to cover the omissions, but he had turned down the
proposal,” a competent source said on Sunday.
Also,
a competent Presidency source who spoke on condition of anonymity on
Sunday that with the level of distortions noticed in the document returned to
the President, there was no way he could have been advised to append his
signature to the budget.
The
source stated, “I can confirm to you that the President has been advised not to
sign the budget as it is. The initial plan was for him to sign it before going
to China and thereafter present a supplementary budget to the National
Assembly.
“But
as it is, with the level of distortions noticed, the President has been advised
not to sign it at all.”
It
was gathered that Buhari on Sunday afternoon met behind closed doors with
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Minister of Budget and National Planning,
Senator Udo Udoma, in continuation of his consultation on the budget.
The
meeting was held inside the President’s official residence in the Presidential
Villa, Abuja.
The
meeting was held shortly before Buhari left Abuja for China on a one-week
official visit.
It
was learnt that the meeting was a follow-up to an earlier one held by the
President with the leadership of the National Assembly.
Presidential
spokesmen, Mr. Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, were not available for comments on
Sunday as they were on the President’s entourage to China.
Investigations
by our correspondents at the National Assembly showed that the majority of the
109 senators and the 360 members of the House of Representatives had no
knowledge of the details of the 2016 budget before they passed the document on
March 23.
It
was learnt on Sunday that the lawmakers placed too much confidence on the
judgment of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriation, chaired by
Senator Danjuma Goje and Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, to work out the details that
they reportedly paid less attention to the work of the committee.
One
senior legislative official, who followed the budget through, said, “Let the
truth be told; the budget was passed without any information on the breakdown.
“We
all trusted the committee that due to the pressure to pass the budget, the
members should work out the details while we passed the highlights.
“The
news of inserting projects or removing some came as a surprise to many us.”
It
was learnt that in the case of the House of Representatives in particular, only
the Chairman, Jibrin, and a few members of the Committee on Appropriation sat
to work on the details of the budget without the knowledge of other members.
“Although
members of the committee were asked to stay behind during the Easter break for
the purpose of working on the details, they were not called to meetings to work
on the details.
“What
we heard was that some consultants were hired by the chairman to work on the
details, while he pleaded with members for understanding because of the
exigencies of time,” another legislative official disclosed .
As
the development unfolded, opposition party lawmakers, in a surprise move,
backed Buhari’s objections to the budget, saying the President was right.
Speaking
on their behalf, the Minority Leader of the House and member of the main
opposition Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Leo Ogor, said that Buhari was free to
reject the budget if it did not fall in line with his economic agenda.
Citing
the alleged removal of the Lagos-Calabar rail line project from the budget,
Ogor noted that the President must have made provision for it because he
believed it would be a major boost to his economic agenda.
Ogor
stated that the Committees on Transport and all other committees supervising
agencies whose projects were removed would have to explain whether the removal
was done with their knowledge.
However,
Jibrin took to his Twitter handle to respond to allegations levelled against
the National Assembly and specifically the Committee on Appropriation.
In
a series of tweets, he addressed some of the issues one after another.
In
the tweets, he said, “The Lagos-Calabar rail (line project) was never included.
How could NASS have removed what was not there? But the nation is being misled.
“This
is unfortunate as it is quite clear to all and sundry that #Budget2016 and all
its headaches and controversies didn’t emanate from NASS.
“We
will come up with a comprehensive position especially with respect to our
observation of the budget and what we did to make it better.”
He
added, “What NASS did with the N54bn? We added N39.7bn to the Lagos-Kano Rail
project. This will help complete the project once and for all.
“That
N50bn be set aside as special bursary for students of tertiary institutions.”
When
contacted, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, on Sunday, said he was not aware of
any meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Presidency over
the 2016 budget.
Ndume,
who spoke in a telephone interview in Abuja,
said, “Our concern as Nigerians should be how to collectively move the nation
forward instead of writing on speculations that could heat up the polity.”
Attempts
to get the Director, Information, Ministry of Budget and Planning, Mr Charles
Dafe, to comment on steps being taken to resolve the grey areas in the budget
were not successful.
The
Senate on Sunday also denied allegations of padding levelled against the
appropriation committees of the National Assembly.
Senate
spokesman, Senator Abdullahi Sabi, said in Abuja that the Constitution of
Nigeria did not make the legislature a rubber stamp.
He
said, “I can say authoritatively that we did not pad the budget at all. I
reject that in its entirety. We appropriated in line with what we believe the
issues are and we did so in consultation with the Ministries, Departments and
Agencies.”
He
added that the National Assembly, in reality, helped the executive to pass a
badly written budget, saying having done its job within the law, the lawmakers
expected the executive to follow the constitutional process.
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