President Mohammadu Buhari
The Senate has said the second version of the 2016 budget document brought by the presidency to the National Assembly failed a series of integrity tests carried out on it.
This was the reason why it was rejected by the Senate, The Guardian reports
Recall that the Senate had last Thursday rejected the second version of the 2016 budget which was replacement of the original version submitted to it by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Senate president, Bukola Saraki had disclosed that they had two versions of the budget. He said presidential liaison officer, Ita Enang, printed a different version from the copy laid by President Buhari on Tuesday, December 22, before a joint session of the National Assembly.
Speaking to newsmen at the National Assembly yesterday, January 18, the Senate majority leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume said the few copies of the budget proposal document earlier submitted to the Senate were thoroughly compared with the copies that were later brought by the presidency and it was discovered that they were different.
According to him, the integrity checks became necessary in order to match figures with projects as some projects which were not in the original document before were added to the second version.
He said: “What we tried to do was to make a comparative analysis. The difference is not in the sub-total or sectorial allocation. The Senate did integrity check and found out that in some cases a certain amount of money was allocated to do two projects and because of integrity check, they found out that more projects were included in what that amount was voted for initially.
“But what I can tell you now is that on the budget that was submitted originally, there were certain integrity checks on it that made some changes in the quantity of projects but not in the total amount of money voted.”
Ndume noted that there were two documents before the Senate and they are taking the first one.
According to him, he rejected the second one because they do not think its good enough for the country.
He further explained that crisis which emanated following the issue of two versions of budget might cause a delay in the Senate’s plan to get the budget passed before the end of February.
However, the majority Senate leader said they were still committed to delay the Senate’s plan to get the budget passed before the end of February.
He also confirmed that Saraki would unveil the contents of a letter sent to the upper legislative chamber by President Muhammadu Buhari today. Though he did not disclose the letter’s content.
Speaking on the calls by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the impeachment of Buhari, he said it was the biggest joke of the year.
“What are we to do with PDP for what they did to this country in the past 16 years. We are to kill PDP,” he added.
The 2016 Appropriation Bill was presented to a joint session of the federal legislature by President Buhari on December 22, 2015. It contained the benchmark oil price of USD38 per barrel.
When the Senate gathered for the first time this year, report surfaced that the budget had gone missing. Following the alleged disappearance of the 2016 budget document from the National Assembly, the Senate Joint Committee on Wednesday, January 13, quizzed five members of staff from the upper chamber.
The Senate later said the budget was not missing but there were two versions, one presented by Buhari and the second presented by presidential liaison officer, Ita Enang.
However, the presidency has described the drama surrounding the 2016 budget as “laughable.”
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