Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Reps Say That Detailed Copy Of 2016 Budget Will Be Ready Today

 


BARING any last minutes change, a detailed clean 
copy of the 2016 budget will be ready today for 
onward transmission to the President for assent.


The Presidency, last week, said the passed budget 
would not be assented to by President Muhammadu 
Buhari because it did not contain the details. But 
reacting, Chairman, House of Representatives 
Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumuni
 Jibrin, said  some previous administrations 
in the country, especially former President
 Olusagun Obasanjo, during his time signed
 the budget without the details which were
 made available two weeks latter. 


However, a member of the Appropriation Committee,
 Joseph Edionwele, representing Esan Centra/Esan West/Igueben Federal 
Constituency of Edo State,
 told Vanguard that there was no cause for alarm 
as the joint committee would meet today to 
produce the clean copy for onward transmission
 to the President. Edionwele said necessary 
reconciliations had been concluded and that 
the final copy with the details would be ready 
at today’s meeting. 


Also speaking to Vanguard  on why the details 
of the budget were not submitted to the Presidency,  member representing Akoko Edo Federal Constituency of Edo State in the House of Representatives, Peter 
Akpatason, said  the National Assembly had to
 submit the passed 2016 budget to the Presidency 
without the details to satisfy the curiosity of Nigerians. Akpatason, a former National President of  
Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas 
Workers, NUPENG, said  there was nothing
 wrong in submitting the passed budget to the 
Presidency without the details. He said:  
“The ideal thing is to send in the details 
when they are available, but in the circumstance
 that we find ourselves, if the details are not
 immediately available, I think it is proper that
 the President be given the information that
 he has already. I don’t think there is anything
 unusual.”


 “Again, what is going on just now is also not 
completely new that the highlights have been 
forwarded to the President and you take your 
time to cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘i’s to make 
sure that the kind of stories that happened at
 the beginning will not happen in this case. 
“I think that is what is going on, Nigerians are 
anxious, so it is understandable why people are 
getting so curious about it. The budget proposal
 was not submitted early enough in the first place
 and then because of the challenges that followed 
at the beginning, the passage equally took much
 longer time. 

Why NASS sent highlights of the budget 

On why the National Assembly decided to send 
the highlights of the budget to the Presidency 
for assent without the details, the lawmaker, 
who is of the All Progressives Congress, APC, 
said it was so  “so that we can satisfy the curiosity of Nigerian people.” However, there was an indication, yesterday, that the Presidency and the National 
Assembly might clashed again, if President Buhari 
insisted that the details in the passed budget would
 have allocations to various ministries, departments
 and agencies, MDAs, as was proposed in the budget document. 

The signal to this emanates from the comments
 by the House Committee Chairman on Appropriation 
who had maintained that it was the duty of the 
executive to propose, while the legislature 
appropriates. He also said the National Assembly 
would not  abdicate its constitutional role to any 
other arm of government, adding that globally,
 there was no way the budget proposal prepared
 by the executive would remain the same as when 
it was sent to the parliament for appropriations.  


 Vanguard reportage

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