After a week of confusion over different versions of the 2016 Budget document, the Senate yesterday resolved to commence debate on the corrected version sent to it by the Presidency last weekend.
This was sequel to a letter written to that effect to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari and read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
President Buhari, who alluded to the confusion and errors observed in the details of the budget document presented to the Senate, implored it in the letter to work with the corrected version.
He said: “It will be recalled that on Tuesday 22nd December, 2015, I presented my 2016 Budget proposals to the joint sitting of the National Assembly. I submitted a draft bill accompanied by a schedule of details. At the time of submission, we indicated that because the details had just been produced, we would have had to check to ensure that there were no errors in the detailed breakdown contained in the schedule.
“That had since been completed and I understand that the corrections have been submitted. The National Assembly would, therefore, have the details as submitted on the 22nd and a copy containing the corrections submitted last week appears to have led to some confusion.
“In this regard, please, find attached the corrected version. This is the version the Assembly should work with as my 2016 Budget estimates. The draft bill remains the same and there are no changes in any of the figures.”
Accordingly, Senate President Saraki, after reading the letter, directed senators to liaise with the office of the Clerk to the Senate Committee on Appropriation, for copies of the corrected version in preparation for commencement of general debate on it today.
The Senate had last week in the heat of the confusion over alleged different versions of the 2016 budget documents vowed not to consider any other one aside the one laid by President Buhari himself to a joint sitting of the National Assembly in December last year.
Senate arrived at that position based on recommendation made to that effect by its committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition that carried out investigation on alleged different versions of the budget document.
Saraki in announcing the Senate position then, said: “We have received the report of the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on investigations surrounding 2016 Appropriation Bill.
“Our finding is that Senator Ita Enang, the SSA to the President on NASS Matters, printed copies of the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought to the Senate from where we discovered that what he brought is different from the version presented by Mr President.
“We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr President as soon as we receive soft copy of the original document from the Executive.”
But the President’s letter to the Senate elicited a U-turn by it without waiting for any soft copy again.
As the Senate tried to resolve issues surrounding the President’s letter, there was uproar at the lower chamber over the same letter as members of the House of Representatives, yesterday, at plenary session disagreed over the letter.
The Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, while reading the letter, disclosed that the president had made corrections to the details of the budget as presented on December 22.
Arguments however started at about 11.25am immediately the speaker read the president’s letter when the Minority Leader of the House, Hon. Leo Ogor, PDP, Isoko Federal constituency, cited Sections 81 and 84 of the constitution, which he said do not give the president powers to amend budget, adding that such powers lie with the legislature.
Ogor immediately called on the House to disregard Buhari’s letter.
Dogara, apparently defending the president, said there was nowhere in the letter that Buhari said the budget was amended, adding that it is only the president that has powers to make corrections to the budget if he observes any error.
The PDP lawmakers started chanting “no, no!” and prevented Dogara from making his point for some minutes.
But the Speaker drove home his point, hinging his argument on the fact that there was nowhere the president mentioned the word amendment, rather he used the word correction “which the president alone can correct.”
Also, Linus Okorie, PDP, Ebonyi, raised a point of order that the speaker did not follow the order of the House procedure as he chose to read petitions before the House when in actual practice the president’s letter ought to have been read first.
The speaker, in self defence, told the House that immediately he arrived, the first thing he did was to explain to the entire House that he was going to take petitions first before the letters he had with him.
Meanwhile, the Senate after receipt of the president’s letter went into closed door session with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN), Godwin Emefiele, over the dwindling state of the economy and, in particular, continuous depreciation of the Naira which presently exchanges for N300 to a dollar at the FOREX market.
Briefing the press after the closed door meeting which lasted for about two hours, Senate spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sabi (Niger North), said though these are indeed difficult times all over the world, but having carefully considered the policies of the CBN in addressing the trying times, no cause for alarm for Nigeria.
“The analysis by the CBN governor shows that Nigeria is not doing badly in many macroeconomic indices compared to its peers,” he said.
Newswatch
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