After weeks of buck-passing because of doctoring errors in the 2016 budget estimates, the Senate is set to pass its version of the Appropriations Bill before proceeding on Easter recess.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Sen Babajide Omoworare (Osun-APC) in an exclusive interview Monday, disclosed that the Red Chamber has cleaned up blights in the document and would debate and pass it today.
“To the best of my knowledge, the budget will be laid (today), March 22nd, 2016 and debated, except something happens that we may not be in control of. We may even pass the budget (Tuesday),” he said.
He warned that there are so many things at stake that nobody can afford to delay the budget further.
He dismissed the excuse that the budget’s passage was delayed because of the several errors discovered in it.
According to him, “Over the years, there have been errors in budgets that we passed, but we passed them,” pointing out that the errors were not the fault of the President or the Presidency.
Omoworare also asked Nigerians to be patient with the Senate and the House of Representatives on the Budget because the thorough efforts of the parliament would turn out in the best interest of the masses. He recalled that the Senate deferred the passage of the Budget last week Thursday, citing reasons of errors detected in the document.
Though a member of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Suleiman Nazif (Bauchi-APC) had declared that the document will be laid before the Senate by the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Mohammed Goje (Gombe, APC), the upper chamber failed to do so.
Spokesmen of both chambers of NASS, Sen Abdullahi (Niger, APC) and Abdulrazaq Namdas (APC, Adamawa), repeated the traditional song of errors, insisting that the budget must be cleaned up before its presentation for passage. However, section 80 of the 1999 Constitution gives a deadline of March 31 for every budget to be passed. It also through some subsections, allows a window for supplementary budgets or amendments to the budget as presented or worked on by the National Assembly.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, December 22, 2015 presented estimates of the 2016 Budget before a joint session of the National Assembly.
Soon after the presentation came fireworks which charged the polity with allegations of budget padding, double or multiple sub-heads for the same items, leading to adjustments in the estimates and a mass purge of staff at the Budget Office for allegedly “messing up” the estimates to embarrass the President.
-Leadership
