THE Deputy Chairman, Federal House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Honourable Mark Terseer Gbillah, has said that the N6.08 trillion 2016 budget proposal would have been a disaster to Nigerians without the intervention of the National Assembly.
He said the National Assembly would do a thorough job on the “jumbled and lopsided estimate” in order to translate it to a budget of Change in line with the aspirations of Nigerians.
Speaking in an interview with Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, the lawmaker, representing Gwer East-Gwer West, Federal Constituency of Benue State, said the bureaucrats who prepared the budget betrayed President Muhammadu Buhari.
He added that the intricate details of the budget when looked closely never reflected the general principles of Change that President Buhari and his administration have.
He, however, commended Buhari, to have for the first time in Nigeria, depend on non-oil revenue to drive the Federal government’s budget, saying this was a clear indication that the country was on the right path towards diversification of the economy.
While stressing that the National Assembly would do a though work on the budget, he pointed out that the budget proposal was a total disconnect between the people and the Change mantra of the current administration.
Hon. Gbillah, said: “This budget as it is now, is going to be a disaster for the Nigerians and now who is to intervene; the legislature. We are the last hope of the Nigerian people now to translate this budget into the real budget of Change.
“Because of lopsided allocation of things, we are going to go through that budget into the finest details. We are also going to have thorough oversight over the implementation of this budget, because from what these bureaucrats have shown, they are not competent to manage the implementation of this budget.
“The way the budget was jumbled up together, even critical sectors of the economy that are supposed to generate that non-oil revenue, have not been funded adequately-agriculture, solid mineral-very paltry amount allocated to these sectors,” he said.
He said for instance that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) that is saddled with the responsibility of intervening in every disaster situation in the country, its budget was far lower than the budget of the State House Clinic.
The lawmaker, said it was unfortunate that many Nigerians who do not understand the workings of the National Assembly maligned legislators as money bags.
He said: “Nigerians made the mistake of thinking that money allocated to the Legislature, is divided amongst the legislators. The greatest disservice, that the media have done to legislature and Nigerians have swallowed it this hook line and sinker, is when they bandied wrong stories about how Nigerian legislators are the highest paid legislators in the world.
“That is a lie of all time. This information is right there on the internet, go and check it and you will know that we earn nothing compared to the American legislators they compare us with; who averagely, earn about 50 or more times what a Nigerian legislator earn,” he said
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