Buhari Writes NASS For The Withdrawal of 2016 Budget
President Muhammadu Buhari
has written to the Nationally Assembly to formally request the withdrawal of
the 2016 Appropriation Bill he had presented to a joint session of the
federal legislature on December 22 for adjustment, THISDAY has learnt. The
president’s leader was addressed to Senate President Bukola Saraki and
Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara.
The formal request followed controversy over the alleged secret extraction
and doctoring of the original budget document. The controversy over the
budget had raged all through last week, as the National Assembly resumed
after a recess and the legislators prepared to begin deliberation on the
budget.
It emerged that the budget saga, which became the source of an ever-growing
confusion, arose from Senior Special Assistant to the President on National
Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang’s alleged adoption of a sneaky approach
in the pursuit of an otherwise legitimate objective.
It was gathered that
Buhari
had discovered after presenting the 2016 budget to the National Assembly
that some of the figures proposed for operations in the Presidency and the
State House were being publicly criticized as outrageous and higher than
those of his predecessor, former President Goodluck Jonathan. Given Buhari’s
austere nature and the change agenda of his party, the figures for the
subheads in the budget for the office of the president, vice president, and
a few ministries, which went viral on the social media and had become a
major topic of discussion on both the print and broadcast media, were a huge
embarrassment.
To reflect the public mood, the president was said to have directed the
recall of the 2016 budget from the National Assembly for review. Ordinarily,
the review process should have entailed a written request from the president
to the National Assembly calling for the withdrawal of the budget. But
Enang, allegedly, embarked on a surreptitious process of changing the budget
figures, which went awry.
The senate had at its plenary on Thursday accused Enang of doctoring the
contents of the 2016 Appropriation Bill presented to the National Assembly
by Buhari. “What he distributed is different from what was presented by Mr.
President and we have resolved not to address any version until we receive
the version presented by Mr. President,” Saraki announced to the senators
after an executive session that dwelled on a strange confusion about the
substitution of the budget, which had raged since Monday. Enang’s indictment
followed an investigation by the ethics and privileges committee of the
senate.
THISDAY checks revealed that when Enang wanted to swap the original
document, he attempted to reach the Clerk of the Appropriation Committee by
telephone but could not get through. He then decided to call the Acting
Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Nelson Ayewoh, and told him how he had
attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to reach the appropriation clerk to
collect a document from him.
Ayewoh, it was learnt, accepted to call the appropriation committee clerk
and ask him to call Enang, but without knowing that the communication was in
connection with the budget document.
Ayewoh was said to have told the investigating committee that he did not
know what Enang wanted to discuss with the appropriation clerk but only
showed him respect by drawing the clerk's attention to Enang's call.
However, THISDAY was reliably informed that when Enang appeared before the
committee, he denied communicating with both Ayewoh and the appropriation
clerk over the budget. He also allegedly said he never had their numbers.
Efforts to reach Enang for his reaction to the budget controversy did not
succeed. He appears to have decided to reserve his comment on the matter. In
the heat of the controversy last week, Enang was quoted as saying, “I do not
want to comment on the matter at the moment. It is a very sensitive matter
involving two of my bosses – the National Assembly and Presidency. I don’t
want to talk about them.”
Also yesterday, the Senate and former Interim National Chairman of APC,
Chief Bisi Akande, exchanged diatribes over controversy surrounding the 2016
budget.
Apparently unaware that the President had written the National Assembly on
the budget controversy, Akande, in a chat with newsmen in his Ila country
home as part of activities marking his 77th birthday, said the claim of
missing 2016 budget from the upper legislative chamber was the furtherance
of the indiscipline that produced its leadership.
The former interim national chairman of APC also said that the APC still did
not believe in the composition of the upper legislative body.
He said: "When I first read in the newspapers that budget was missing in
Abuja, you know I live in Ila and I don't have all the details of what goes on
in Abuja. I called the lawmaker representing my constituency and he told me
that the budget presented to the House of Representatives was not missing.
That showed some complications.
"The whole thing is borne out of indiscipline. You know when foundation of an
assembly is indiscipline, the whole thing is bad. That assembly was not
constituted the way my party wanted it. The process was hijacked and the
leadership was constituted the way it is.
"So from such an assembly, you should expect all kinds of stories. The
development regarding the missing budget may be caused by mishandling by
people, who are not supposed to be in position. Mr. President should not be
blamed for what is happening
"Come to think of it, how can a document as voluminous as the budget of a
whole nation go missing? With my experience in government, just a ministry may
have up to 10 pages or up to 100 pages. Imagine you have 30 ministries, that
means you will have a documents of 30,000. How on earth will such a large
document get missing?”
The Senate however deplored the comment by Akande, describing his reaction as
another expression of the frustration which accompanied his inability "to
impose his lackeys on the Senate as leaders."
In a statement last night, the Senate said it was regrettable that a man of
Akande's status could respond to speculations without cross-checking his
facts, alleging that the former governor was always eager to exploit any
available opportunity to bring into disrepute the leadership of the Senate
because his candidates lost out in the power game.
According to the statement signed by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media,
Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, the parliament said if only Akande had chosen to
check his record properly, he would see that "at no time did the Senate say
the 2016 budget was missing."
He said the Senate had insisted through several official statements and press
interviews by its principal officers that the budget was not missing but two
different versions of the budget were seen by senators.
"We have said it several times that the budget was not missing; that two
versions of the details of the budget exist and this is no longer in doubt as
the Presidency has equally admitted this. We expect a man of Akande's calibre
to cross-check his facts and take us up on our words. That he decided to
ignore the facts and make comments on speculations is regrettable. He is a man
who had served in government. He is a leader of the party with the majority in
the Senate and he has several channels of cross-checking facts as against
speculations," the statement stated.
The Senate further said contrary to the description of what happened as
indiscipline on the part of the leadership, the position of Senate leadership
is a demonstration of the regime of openness, transparency and accountability
which he said had become the hallmark of the current upper legislative
chamber.
It added: "Chief Akande is still sulking after his group's failed attempt to
impose certain individuals as the leaders of the Senate last year. So, he was
in a hurry to condemn the leadership. We want him to know that the leadership
of the Senate can only emerge through the provisions of the constitution and
the standing rules of the institution. As a democrat, Akande should know that
once the majority has elected the leadership, all parties to the contest ought
to accept the decision.
"To continue belly-aching and working to undermine the institution because of
the failure to get one's choice candidates elected casts doubts on his
democratic credentials. It appears he is only a democrat when he has his way.
We advise him to move on and let us help the legislative institution to focus
on its agenda to serve the people in line with the much needed change that
President Muhammadu Buhari promised the nation."
ThisDay
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