By Gbadamosi Oladimeji
The Senate, on Tuesday, stepped down deliberation and knocked the executive over alleged irregularities on the revised N10.509trn 2020 budget forwarded to the house by President Muhammadu Buhari for consideration.
This action action of the Senate followed the inability of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Jubrin Barau, to submit the team’s report on the budget.
KAFTANPOST gathered this while the Senator addressed his colleagues during plenary in the upper chamber of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The lawmaker attributed this to the failure of the Budget Office to capture the entire N500bn intervention fund for COVID-19 in the Appropriation Bill.
According to him, “While N314bn is captured as part of the intervention fund, the balance of N186bn proposed for the Health sector was not captured in the revised budget”.
In his response, Barau however said the committee informed the Budget Office of the omission last week, and revealed that there was no need for the entire N500bn to be captured in the budget since it was fully highlighted in the MTEF/FSP documents already passed by the Senate.
The lawmaker noted that, the committee rejected the excuse in line with Sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution which empowered the National Assembly to appropriate every single kobo for the executive before spending.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, directed that those responsible for the budget documents should provide them without further delay.
He also asked the Senate Appropriation Committee to have the documents printed and submitted before the lawmakers for final consideration today.
Lawan said, “Let me make this comment, I will advise those responsible for putting budget estimates for revised or whatever to be meticulous and responsible.
“The National Assembly cannot be a destination where lack of efficiency in somebody’s job would be addressed. We are supposed to have the entire bill presented us and you did the right thing by asking and insisting that a letter be written to specifically address that problem that there was an omission on their side”, he added.
