Punch: There were indications on Sunday that the National Assembly’s peace moves with the executive over the 2016 budget crisis had flopped.
As part of the peace moves, the National Assembly had, on Saturday, reached out to the executive and asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the document and then send a supplementary budget to the lawmakers.
A minister, said secretly both arms of government had been discussing the issue, but the President had been advised by members of his cabinet not to sign the appropriation bill.It was gathered that the President did not accept the suggestion against the backdrop that the distortions in the budget discovered in the document transmitted by the National Assembly were too many.
“The National Assembly has initiated some peace moves. The lawmakers have suggested that the budget should be signed by the President before he will send a supplementary budget to cover the omissions, but he had turned down the proposal,” a competent source told one of our correspondents on Sunday.
Also, a competent Presidency source said on condition of anonymity on Sunday that with the level of distortions noticed in the document returned to the President, there was no way he could have been advised to append his signature to the budget.
The source stated, “I can confirm to you that the President has been advised not to sign the budget as it is. The initial plan was for him to sign it before going to China and thereafter present a supplementary budget to the National Assembly.
“But as it is, with the level of distortions noticed, the President has been advised not to sign it at all.”
It was gathered that Buhari on Sunday afternoon met behind closed doors with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, in continuation of his consultation on the budget.
The meeting was held inside the President’s official residence in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting was held shortly before Buhari left Abuja for China on a one-week official visit.
It was learnt that the meeting was a follow-up to an earlier one held by the President with the leadership of the National Assembly.
Presidential spokesmen, Mr. Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, were not available for comments on Sunday as they were on the President’s entourage to China.
Investigations by our correspondents at the National Assembly showed that the majority of the 109 senators and the 360 members of the House of Representatives had no knowledge of the details of the 2016 budget before they passed the document on March 23.
It was learnt on Sunday that the lawmakers placed too much confidence on the judgment of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriation, chaired by Senator Danjuma Goje and Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, to work out the details that they reportedly paid less attention to the work of the committee.
One senior legislative official, who followed the budget through, said, “Let the truth be told; the budget was passed without any information on the breakdown.
“We all trusted the committee that due to the pressure to pass the budget, the members should work out the details while we passed the highlights.
“The news of inserting projects or removing some came as a surprise to many us.”
It was learnt that in the case of the House of Representatives in particular, only the Chairman, Jibrin, and a few members of the Committee on Appropriation sat to work on the details of the budget without the knowledge of other members.
“Although members of the committee were asked to stay behind during the Easter break for the purpose of working on the details, they were not called to meetings to work on the details.
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