A committee mandated by the Senate to investigate the suspicion and controversy surrounding the “missing” 2016 budget is to submit its report on Thursday.
The committee was set up during a closed-door session of the Senate on Tuesday when the matter was discussed.
On Wednesday, Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP-Abia State), raised a point of order asking the Senate to clear the air on the missing budget.
He said the matter had become an urgent issue of public importance, hence the need to account to the public.
But the Senate President Bukola Saraki (APC-Kwara State), said the Senate would wait for the ad hoc committee to look into the matter and submit its report on Thursday.
“As we know, we are all part of the decision. We gave assignment to some people and they will come back tomorrow,” he said.
The Senate also announced it would debate the 2016 budget from Tuesday, and that lawmakers would receive copies of the document by Thursday.
The upper lawmaking body is expected to produce new copies of the budget, after senators said on Tuesday that copies handed over by President Muhammadu Buhari had surprisingly disappeared.
Senators said they suspected the presidency secretly withdrew the documents for some modification, a claim the Presidency denied.
Officials well-briefed on the matter said both the leadership of the National Assembly and the Presidency, as well as Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office, were working to discreetly change certain parameters of the budget proposal following the slide in the global oil price.
Speaking Wednesday, Saraki said senators would start deliberation on the budget on Tuesday, but would only receive copies on Thursday.
Meanwhile, while the Senate awaits the conclusion of its investigation, Speaker Yakubu Dogara of the House of Representatives on Wednesday displayed a copy of the budget during the House’s sitting, saying the budget was not missing.
Dogara said the report of the missing budget was an “April fool”.
Editor’s Note: The Senate said members would receive copies of the budget Thursday, not next week, as stated in our earlier report. The error is regretted.
Senators suspect presidency behind ‘missing’ 2016 budget documents
Some senators said Wednesday they are suspicious the Presidency is behind the sudden disappearance of the 2016 budget submitted to the National Assembly.
The lawmakers said the intelligence they have so far gathered suggested that the Presidency discreetly withdrew the documents to enable it to make some adjustments to it.
The president had presented the budget to a joint session of the legislature in December.
It emerged Tuesday that the Senate, during an executive session, declared the documents missing.
The Senate Leader, Ali Ndume informed the senators, upon resumption from the Christmas/New Year break, that deliberations on the budget could not commence until fresh copies of the documents were obtained from the Presidency, Ministry of Finance or its national planning counterpart.
However, some senators, who requested not to be named so as not to anger the Presidency, said they had since realised the budget was discreetly withdrawn by the President in order to make some adjustments.
The senators said the Presidency, in the past two weeks, has been combing through the budget with a view to removing provisions that had so far exposed the administration to ridicule.
“The executive has now started delivering fresh copies of the budget documents to the National Assembly,” one of the senators said.
“The details in the copies they are delivering are different from those in the version delivered to the National Assembly in December. Some adjustments have been made.”
But the presidency has however denied withdrawing the document.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Garba Shehu, said only Buhari could withdraw the budget but had not done so.
He suggested that the issue of missing budgets should not arise because several copies of the document were sent to the legislature.
“Nobody except the President can withdraw the budget; as far as we know, he hasn’t done that,” Shehu said in response to enquiries on the matter Tuesday.
“The copies in their hundreds have been delivered to both chambers of the National Assembly.
“By tradition, once the budget is submitted, it ceases to be our property. Inquiries should be directed to the appropriate quarters.”
When contacted, the Minister of State for National Planning Zainab Ahmed, expressed shock at reports of the missing budget.
She explained that ahead of Tuesday’s resumption of the Senate and House of Representatives, more than 400 copies of the document were delivered to the two chambers on Monday by the printer for distribution to all members.
“After the official presentation of the budget by the President on December 22, 2015, both hard and soft copies were given to some key members of the Assembly. How can anyone say all the copies are missing?” she said in an interview.
“Immediately after the presentation (by Buhari), most of the members went on break. But a printer was given the job to produce the document for distribution to all members on resumption.
“On Monday, the printer delivered more than 400 copies to the National Assembly for distribution to members and their aides. Another 100 copies were delivered this afternoon (Tuesday). Therefore, the same budget cannot be said to be missing.”
Mrs. Ahmed argued that if there is need to withdraw the budget, the same process with which it was presented by the President to the legislature would be followed.
-PremiumTimes
