SAN FRANCISCO, February 09, (THEWILL) – The National Assembly, on Tuesday said the Feb. 25 deadline it set for the passage of the 2016 Appropriation Bill was no longer realistic because the document is full of errors.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Sen. Danjuma Goje, made this known while briefing newsmen on in Abuja.
Goje said that the Joint Committee on Appropriation of the National Assembly had observed a lot of irregularities in the budget proposal, making it impossible to conclude work and pass it on the deadline.
He disclosed that various committees in the two chambers of the assembly discovered a lot of fraudulent padding of funds and other discrepancies in the proposals of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
He stated that the move to suspend the initial deadline became necessary in order to produce a fiscal document that would be easily implementable as well as bring about the desired change.
According to him, the committees will liaise with different stakeholders to develop a workable and acceptable budget for the 2016 fiscal year.
Goje, however, denied insinuations that the sudden decision to postpone the approval of the budget was as a result of a seeming rift between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Presidency.
“We are here in connection with ongoing processing of 2016 budget defence, and because of observed instances that are being reported from the beginning of the budget submission, there are a lot of controversies surrounding the budget.
“We feel that we have to come here, interact with you, make some clarifications that Nigerians will know the correct situation of things regarding the 2016 budget.”
“As you are all aware, a lot of issues have come up and gladly, even the executive arm of government has also come out to accept the fact that there have been a lot of errors in the budget.”
“Again, during the budget defence, a lot of issues based on the padding of the budget arising from over-bloated overhead and in some instances, cases of over-bloated personnel cost were discovered.”
“We want to remove all ambiguities; we want to remove all padding. We want to produce a budget that is in line with the constitutional requirement,’’ he said.
The lawmaker said that the appropriation committee would look at the various issues at the end of the budget “towards ensuring proper clean-up’’.
Speaking on capital expenditure of MDAs, he said that there were disagreements between ministers and civil servants that needed to be properly looked into.
NAN
