ABUJA—The controversy trailing the 2016 budget of the
Federal Government got messier, yesterday, as legislators in the two chambers
of the National Assembly, NASS, broke ranks with the official position of NASS
which blamed the Presidency for the fiasco.
While senators from the southern
part of the country, in a formal position, asked the President not to give his
assent to the budget, members of the House of Representatives in a closed-door
session rose against Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation,
Abdulmumin Jibrin, who they blamed for orchestrating the face-off.
President
Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Minister of Budget and National
Planning Senator Udoma Udo Udoma putting heads together on the way forward on
the 2016 Budget recently.
The southern senators and members of the House of
Representatives from across ethnic and party lines were miffed by what they
described as the central role of Jibrin in removing the Calabar–Lagos rail line
from the federal budget.
While the Southern senators asked the President not to
give his assent without the inclusion of the rail line, the House requested the
Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, to interface with President Muhammadu Buhari towards
resolving the imbroglio.
The face-off in the House ensued shortly after it went
into a closed-door session and Speaker Dogara sought explanations from Jibrin
on the issues concerning the budget. As Jibrin got up to explain the procedure
adopted, he was faced with criticisms from several members, leading to an
uproar. Members in different tones, accused him of muddling up the reputation
of the House and putting the legislature and the Presidency in an unnecessary
face-off.
They alleged that recommendations put up by the House committees were
unilaterally tampered with by the Jibrin-led House Committee on Appropriation.
At the end of the session with members seemingly convinced that the problem
arose from the legislature, the members urged the speaker to seek audience with
the President to remedy the situation.
The House resolution Reading the resolution after the closed-door
session, Speaker Dogara said:
In the
interest of our people, in view of the prevailing economic situation, the House
has decided to re-examine the 2016 budget.
Briefing journalists after plenary,
Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas,
reiterated the claim that the rail project was not contained in the original
budget proposal laid before the National Assembly by the President.
We are not
saying that as a House that the Calabar-Lagos rail project is not good, we know
it is a viable project. “Our concern is that people say that this thing was in
the budget, and we removed it.
That is why we are making this clarification and
again I want to state it clearly that up till now, as I speak, there is no
communication from the executive, the President to the National Assembly about
the budget.
All that we read in the media are other people’s opinions, but Mr.
President has not come out clearly, and this is my problem with the budget that
has been passed because as we were told, this budget has been taken back to
Ministries for them to examine and get back to the President. “That is why we
asked our speaker to liaise with the executive, let’s know what is the issue
because we are elected by the people and we are here to serve Nigerians.
Mistrust, suspicion However, a member that spoke to Vanguard on condition of
anonymity, said the problem with the budget was the issue of mistrust and
suspicion. The source stated that since the election of presiding officers,
there had been suspicion, adding that the controversy generated by the budget
issue was not supposed to arise.
The source also told Vanguard that at the
closed-door session, some members had called for Jibrin’s resignation as
chairman of the Appropriation Committee.
The Appropriation Committee Chairman
was accused of making statements that were not approved by the House. He helped
in escalating the situation, and that was why some members called for his
resignation,” the lawmaker said.
For the second day running since the Senate
resumed from the Easter break, the plenary went off without a mention of the
budget controversy on the floor.
However, outside the chambers, it continued to
engage the attention of senators. South East, South-South and South West
senators, who met in separate caucuses, have also separately resolved to
jettison the budget as passed by the National Assembly and urged the President
not to sign the document until the Calabar-Lagos rail project was included.
The
South-South, South East, and South West legislators met separately on Tuesday night
where they arrived at the same conclusion. The meeting of the South West
senators took place at the residence of Senator Gbenga Ashafa, APC, Lagos East,
who himself is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Land Transport.
As the
controversy broke last week, Senator Ashafa on Monday confirmed that the
Calabar-Lagos rail project was contained in the report of his committee to the
Senator Danjuma Goje-led Committee on Appropriation.
Senator Adesoji Akanbi,
APC, Oyo South, who confirmed the meeting, said the APC caucus in the South
West was solidly behind Ashafa’s stance. Senator Akanbi said that presidential
assent to the budget document as presented, without the inclusion of the N60
billion Calabar-Lagos rail project, would not be in the interest of the people
of the South West.
Personally, I see no reason the funds in the Ministry of
Transport should be moved completely to the Ministry of Works for the
construction of roads which belongs to state governments, without engineering
design. “
We are seeking the reversion of this decision because the Calabar –
Lagos rail project is very viable and it cuts across states in the South-South
and South West, and it would galvanise the social and economic activities of
the affected regions. “
Apart from this, the project is a joint venture between
Nigeria and China and it is time bound. Any attempt to leave it out of the
budget this year will affect the execution of the project.”
Senator Akanbi
noted that the argument of the appropriation committees that they could not
accommodate the Calabar-Lagos rail project, because it was not included in the
budget presented by Buhari, was not tenable because a supplementary provision
was supplied.
He said that a similar situation happened in the committee of
solid minerals when the rents on some of the ministry’s property were omitted
in the budget presented.
The senator explained that officials of the ministry
were asked to go and re-present a supplementary budget of N5m, which was
instantly included by the committee and presented to the appropriation
committee and consequently accommodated. “
The situation is similar to what
happened in the Committee on Land Transport because the supplementary budget
presented by the Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, was allowed in the parliamentary process.
“
Why should the money in the transportation ministry be moved to the ministry
of works and voted for the construction of roads that had no engineering design
and do not even belong to the federal government?” However, some lawmakers are
insisting that since the budget had been passed, the only option open to the
President was to present a supplementary budget to cover the shortfall.
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