[C]ontroversies over the 2016 Appropriation Bill have continued to tear the Executive and Legislature apart.
The two arms of government continued trading accusations over the missing Lagos-Calabar rail project and other discrepancies on Monday.
While the Executive arms of government accused the National Assembly of removing the rail project and other crucial ones, the Senate fired back, saying the rail project was not part of the proposal submitted to the National Assembly in the first place.
The Senate on Monday advised the Presidency to come clean with Nigerians on the Budget and stop engaging in campaigns of calumny against the Senate in order to cover up its serial errors.
Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, in a statement in Abuja, said the National Assembly had bent backwards to wring a coherent document out of the excessively flawed and chaotic versions of the budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly.
“While the executive is mandated to prepare and lay before the National Assembly a proposed budget detailing projects to be executed, it should be made clear that the responsibility and power of appropriation lies with the National Assembly. If the presidency expects us to return the budget proposal to them without any adjustments, then some people must be living in a different era and probably have not come to terms with democracy.”
“We make bold to say however, that the said Lagos-Calabar rail project was not included in the budget proposal presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari and we challenge anyone who has any evidence to the contrary to present such to Nigerians.”
Since the beginning of the 2016 budget process, it is clear that the National Assembly has suffered all manners of falsehood, deliberate distortion of facts, and outright blackmail, deliberately aimed at poisoning the minds of the people against the institution of the National Assembly. We have endured this with equanimity in the overall interest of Nigerians. Even when the original submission was surreptitiously swapped and we ended up having two versions of the budget, which was almost incomprehensible and heavily padded in a manner that betrays lack of coordination and gross incompetence, we refused to play to the gallery and instead helped the Executive to manage the hugely embarrassing situation it has brought upon itself; but enough is enough.”
“This latest antics of this particular minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is reckless, uncalled for and dangerously divisive. Apart from setting the people of the southern part of the country against their northern compatriots, it potentially sets the people against their lawmakers from the concerned constituencies and sets the lawmakers against themselves. This manner of reprehensible mischief has no place in a democracy. We hereby demand from Mr. Amaechi a publicly tendered apology if he is not able to show evidence that the Lagos-Calabar road project was included in the budget. Otherwise, he should resign forthwith.
“Finally, by the provision of Section 81 (4) (a) and (b) of the constitution, the President is allowed to sign the budget and kick-start the implementation of the other areas that constitute over 90 percent of the budget where there is agreement between both arms, even as we engage ourselves to resolve the contentious areas, if there were any. We therefore maintain that even these contrived discrepancies are not sufficient excuse not to sign the budget into law.”
“We therefore urge President Buhari to sign the 2016 budget without any further delay. For every additional day that the president withholds his assent from the bill, the hardship in the land, which is already becoming intolerable for the masses of our people gets even more complicated. Certainly, as primary representatives of the people we shall not vacate our responsibility and watch the people continue to suffer unduly,” the statement read.
In a swift reaction, the Ministry of Transport released a video which went viral on Monday. The video showed the minister, Rotimi Amaechi defending the Lagos-Calabar rail project before a Senate committee. This video was released to counter the narrative by Senate that the rail project budget was not included in the proposal.
It would be recalled that the Presidency had also recently accused the National Assembly of playing politics with the budget procedure by first sending a draft for Presidential assent. The lawmakers fired back by arguing that they followed the laid down procedure.
Due to the latest controversy over missing projects, President Buhari has withheld his assent on the 6.08 trillion budget and instead jetted out to China for trade talks.
