The relationship between the National Assembly and the Presidency has been further strained as the two parties remain headstrong on their positions concerning the controversial 2016 Budget.
The Presidency suggested that the National Assembly had tampered with the budget details with the upper and lower chambers accusing the Presidency of embarking on a fetish campaign.
The Senate on Monday advised the Presidency to come clean with Nigerians on the 2016 Budget and stop engaging in surreptitious campaigns of calumny against the Senate in order to cover up its serial errors.
This is just as the House of Representatives on Monday accused the executive of causing disaffection over the 2016 budget, saying it was the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi that attempted to pad the bill.
Reacting to claims in the media credited to the Executive arm of government on the 2016 budget, 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 produce a coherent document out of the excessively flawed and chaotic versions of the budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly.
He said: “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 House of Representatives denied report that it removed the Calabar-Lagos railway project in the 2016 Budget, saying it was not included in the budget document as submitted to it by the Presidency.
Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs Rep Abdurazak Namdas (APC Adamawa), at a briefing yesterday said that the media reports that the National Assembly removed the Calabar-Lagos rail project was not true.
According to the lawmaker, the budget presentation by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday December 22, 2015 has nothing like Calabar-Lagos rail project.
He said that there was no way that the National Assembly could have removed the said item from the budget adding that it is on record that some people tampered with the budget.
The lawmaker hinted that the NASS receives budget from the Presidency and not from the minister and added that the President said that some bureaucrats tempered with the budget.
He said, ” to say that we are working to frustrate Mr President’s agenda is not true, we are ready to work with Mr President”
He informed that the House has not received the budget document back from the Presidency and further hinted that the painstaking work the apex legislature did on the 2016 budget is due to priority it places on issues of national interest above every other considerations.
However, in a swift reaction yesterday the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, said President Muhammmadu Buhari did not reject the 2016 budget as being speculated.
Mr. Enang told journalists in Abuja that media reports alleging that the budget had been rejected were untrue.
He said what Mr. Buhari before travelling to China was to send the budget to ministries in order to get feedbacks that would inform his assent.
“The president received the budget and convened an emergency Federal Executive Council meeting.
“He gave each of the ministers, departments and agencies the opportunity to look at the details as submitted by the National Assembly.
“This is to enable him get opinion on the state of the budget to enable him take a decision.
“The exercise was conducted on Friday and it is ongoing by the different ministers and ministries,” he explained.
Mr. Enang said Mr. Buhari currently had not exceeded the constitutional time frame to assent to the budget, adding that it should not be assumed that the budget had been rejected.
“The constitutional time frame for Mr President’s receiving and considering the budget began on Friday last week.
“The question has not arisen as to returning or otherwise.
“But I want to say the best way we as liaison officers are handling this matter is to speak less and work more, creating interactions.
“So, we will raise more interactions, consultations, engagements.
“There is nothing for the country to worry about, because we do not want to have crisis between the Executive and the Legislature, and it would not arise; this is one government,” he said.
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