2-IN-1 STORY: Missing 2016 Budget: Presidency Sends Fresh Soft Copy To NASS; Akande, Senate Clash Over ‘Missing’ Budget

The Presidency has passed a new copy of 2016 budget proposal to the National Assembly for consideration by lawmakers. This is coming against the backdrop of the controversy that trailed the announcement by the Senate last week that the document, which was earlier presented by President Muhammadu Buhari, had gone missing.

Daily Trust report continues:

But sources told Daily Trust on Sunday that a new soft copy of the budget had been sent to the two chambers of the National Assembly around 4.30pm on Thursday. The soft copy was passed on to the lawmakers ahead of the commencement of debate on the 2016 budget proposal by the National Assembly.

Hard copies of the budget would be produced and circulated to the lawmakers on Tuesday for the commencement of the debate.

The Senate had at the end of a closed-door session last week insisted that only the budget laid before the joint session of the two chambers by President Buhari would be considered. Meanwhile, a principal officer opened up exclusively to Daily Trust on Sunday on the whole 2016 budget saga.

The controversy which started from the reportedly missing 2016 budget on Tuesday, metamorphosed to the circulation of two versions of the document with the lawmakers indicting the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (Senate), Senator Ita Enang.

Daily Trust on Sunday reports that the two controversies emanated from the end of two separate executive sessions of the senators, the missing budget came up on Tuesday and the circulation of two versions of the budget started on Thursday. Angered by the controversies, a principal officer (name withheld) said the budget that President Buhari laid on December 22, last year was the wrong copy.

“You know Buhari swore in his ministers very late, so when they got to their ministries, they didn’t have enough time to look into the budget.

So when the National Assembly reminded the Presidency that there was an urgent need to present the budget in order to meet the constitutional requirement, they said they will present it on the 18th, but later they came and told us that they were not ready, apparently because they were yet to finish works on the budget document. “They now fixed 22nd of last month, but the budget was not ready at that time again. So, they packaged something for the president to present, since the date had been fixed.

They withheld the soft copy because they knew it would be at variance with the one they were preparing.

“So when we were about to resume, they brought a new one and produced over 500 copies for the Senate and the House of Reps, but the problem is how to retrieve the copy laid by the president because there are significant differences in the two,’’ he said. To retrieve the copy laid by Buhari, he said, Enang collected the copy laid from the clerk of the Appropriation Committee in Senate with a view sneaking in the new ones.

“Meanwhile, we have already fixed last Tuesday for the commencement of the consideration of budget but when we asked the clerk to bring the copy, he couldn’t and that was how the issue of missing budget came up.

Now they are in trouble as there is nothing to produce copies for the senators to debate upon. They wanted to play a fast one but it didn’t work.

“When Dogara Yakubu came up and said he has the original copies, he didn’t know what was happening. The copies displayed at the House of Representatives were the reproduction of the new version. If they had distributed it, they would have been in serious trouble,” he said.

On how they noticed differences in the new version, he said, ‘’When we crosschecked what was made available to us on resumption and the one laid by the President, we discovered that there were sharp differences in what was allocated to the Presidency.

“What was made available in the new one is lower when compared to what we have in the old one, especially feeding.

The allocation of feeding of Mr. President and the vice president was by far higher than what Jonathan and Namadi spent. You know because of the analysis by a national daily, we put more attention on it,’’ he said.

According to him, the budget that was presented by President Buhari was the one that was prepared on the assumption that Jonathan was going to win the last election.

“The feeding money has been increased. They now realized the mistake. It was in an attempt to correct the mistake that they ran into trouble. If they had taken the National Assembly in confidence, they would have stylishly done that without anybody knowing. This is telling you that the man (the President) doesn’t have people around that are experienced enough,” he said.

Asked about the difference between the copy presented by the President and the one reportedly smuggled by Enang, the spokesperson of the Senate, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said he didn’t know.

“I am not in the position to say the differences between the document submitted by the president and the one brought by Enang. The committee that investigated the issue did not include that in their report,’’ he said.

Speaking on the controversies, Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara Central), said they won’t affect the relationship between the Senate and the Executive.

“I want to be very honest; I don’t understand what is playing out. We started with one problem and we are ending with another problem. Today, we say there are two versions, the procedure of laying the budget is very clear.

“President Buhari laid the budget in December, if somebody says there are two versions, where is the second version and when did we have a procedure of collecting budget from SSA? We have a procedure. I think it is very necessary to differentiate what is fake from original. 

“Senator Enang will be the last person that will do that. It cannot just be one copy. If you doctor one out of eight copies, does it make sense? If the Executive has a reason to make changes, it is not a crime. It is either they write the National Assembly or retrieve it, even if the budget is passed they have the right to bring supplementary budget,’’ he said.

Akande, Senate Clash Over ‘Missing’ Budget

•’No, you got your fact wrong’ 

Former interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, yesterday upbraided the leadership of the Senate for alleged misplacement of the 2016 budget proposal submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He blamed the mishandling of the document on what he called the undisciplined process that produced the current leadership of the Senate.

Akande, who spoke with reporters at his Ila-Orangun country home during his 77th birthday, wondered how an important document as the budget could be so mishandled.

But the leadership of the Senate responded swiftly last night.

It said the former governor of Osun State was completely off the course on the issue as it did not say at any time that the document was missing.

It said what it told Nigerians was that two versions of the budget surfaced.

It accused Akande of eagerness to “latch on to any opportunity to bring to disrepute the leadership of the Senate because he failed to get his choice candidates elected.”

Akande had told reporters: “Our party, the All Progressives Congress, never planned to have the structure we have at the National Assembly.”

He said neither President Buhari nor the APC could be blamed for the ‘misplaced’ budget.

On revelations about arms deals under the Jonathan Administration, Chief Akande said: “It surprises us to meet huge corruption. We never knew it was that bad.

“The rot was great. The level of corruption was great. Very huge. It is like facing a monster.”

He enjoined Nigerians to support the fight against corruption by President Buhari.

According to him: “The government can’t do it alone. Nigerians must support Buhari to succeed.?

“We should realise that government and the party are not the same. Government is a product of the government.

“Our party is concerned about three things. And this administration promised three things: to confront corruption, terrorism and reduce unemployment. And these are things we have faced since we came into power.”

On the face off between the Osun State government and its the labour, Chief Akande warned that the workers should realise that the state is not economically viable.

He said what Governor Rauf Aregbesola planned was an eldorado for the state but met a “shocking and collapsed” economy.

He said: “When the economy goes back everyone will be adversely affected. Osun is not viable since it cannot generate good revenue.

“A state that depends only on the federal allocation majorly is not viable. Crude oil, the major revenue earner is no more there. Our buyers used to pay for oil three months in advance but today no one asks us for the oil.

“So, I want to warn the doctors, teachers and the labour, shouting ‘we no go agree’ to thread softly.

“When they continue to tap the floor violently and the ground cave in under their feet there won’t be a state for them to work.”

On the fate of the last National Conference, Akande said its recommendations were not tenable because “the APC, the largest party was left out. I don’t believe in the way the conference was set up so I don’t care about its recommendations.”?

Meanwhile, the Senate leadership in its response to Akande’s  view,  said it was “regrettable that a man of Akande’s status would be responding to mere speculation without cross-checking his facts or worse still eager to latch on to any opportunity to bring to disrepute the leadership of the Senate because he failed to get his choice candidates elected.”

Spokesman for the Green Chamber, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, urged Akande to “check his records properly so that he could see that at no time did the Senate say the 2016 budget was missing.”

He said: “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.”

Abdullahi added: “Contrary to the description of what happened as indiscipline on the part of the leadership, the position of the present Senate leadership is a demonstration of the regime of openness, transparency and accountability that now reigns in the upper legislative chamber. In the past such a development would have been swept under the carpet.

“The statement by Akande was another expression of the frustration that the former Governor of Osun State suffers for not being able to impose his lackeys on the Senate as leaders.

“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.”