The National Assembly has said that lawmakers will not pitch themselves against electorate and operate as rubber stamps in the passage of the country’s annual budget.
Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah and Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, stated this yesterday while speaking to State House Correspondents after the signing of the 2018 budget by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Doguwa explained that the National Assembly was not a rubber stamp and disposed to swallow hook, line and sinker, whatever is sent to the parliament by the executive arm of government.
“Certainly, you wouldn’t expect us to just¬ rubber stamp and just bring it (the budget) back. We¬ have to do the nitty-gritty of budget c¬onsideration. Whatever is worth doing i¬s worth doing well and we have done what¬ we think is the right thing to do to de¬liver on the expectations and the manda¬te bestowed on us by the people of our constituencies,” he said.
Buhari had raised serious concerns after signing the fiscal document, noting that the lawmakers reduced allocation for critical projects in major sectors of the economy.
Na’Allah, who saluted Buhari for his resolve to forward a supplementary budget to remedy some of the issues, said allowing the budget to be passed as proposed by the executive would pitch the lawmakers against their constituencies.
He said: “No, we are not worried. The job of parliamentarians is a very difficult one. The way the budget came, if we had allowed i¬t to go that way, we would have been in ¬trouble with those who elected us.
“You h¬ave to balance between the six geo polit¬ical zones. It is the balancing efforts ¬by the National Assembly that led to tho¬se observations and, happily enough, he himself has said he is coming with a supp¬lementary budget, which will be dealt with as quickly as possible. I assure you a¬bout that one.”
Na’Allah, who represented Senate President at the signing ceremony, blamed the delay in passing the 2018 budget on ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) whom he said, were not forthcoming with their presentations to the National Assembly.
“About the issue of delay, the president ¬is right, but at the same time, if you remember, you were here, the president ha¬d to order some MDAs to appear before th¬e National Assembly for the purpose of defending ¬their budgets.
“It’s a very delicate issue. If somebody ¬said he wants N500 million for the maintenance of bridges nationwide, then you e¬xpect the National Assembly to say ok, t¬hat budget is approved because it came f¬rom the executive, then we have not done¬ our work
“We will be interested in know¬ing which of the roads you are going to -maintain so that again, we don’t give an¬other allocation in the next budget. Those observations are correct, but in th¬e budgeting process, those things are normal.”
Also, Doguwa noted that Buhari’s observations were critical to the implementation of the budget.
“I think some of these major concerns Mr. ¬President has raised are very critical a¬nd I am afraid if I should be in a posit¬ion to respond on behalf of the House. B¬ut for me as an individual and a member of the House of Representatives, I want ¬to belief that the president is at liber¬ty to raise some of these observations. ¬
“But the most important thing you have to¬ know is that the budget has been signed¬ and is now a law of the federation and ¬we expect the executive to now implement¬ the law to the latter.”
He said that if Buhari, however, decides on an amendments or a supplementary bud¬get for the National Assembly to conside¬r, the parliament will also be at l¬iberty to look at the concer¬ns and those things he want the National Assembly to r¬eview.
Doguwa said: “I want to believe the National Assembly is always in a position to work¬ hand in hand with Mr. President. A lot o¬f us in both chambers of the National Assembly have tremendous respect for Mr Pr-esident and we cherish his moral integri¬ty as a leader.
“I want to believe we will¬ always play in tune to his expectations¬ to make him deliver on the dividends of¬ democracy that he promised, especially i¬n this period of election.
.new telegraph
