Some things definitely went wrong with the first budget that President Buhari would present to the National Assembly. Some people somehow got hold of the budget and added their own inputs which have now become embarrassing to the government.It had always been a phenomenon within the country's budgeting circles that the budget presented to the National Assembly would be at variance with what the Assembly passes. The padding is usually done with the connivance of the NASS members with major inputs coming from top ministry officials. Somehow this year's edition has gone awry hence the issues being raised by both the Ministers as well as Assembly members. The Presidency confirmed that there were ‘minor’ errors in the budget. What the Presidency did not tell the National Assembly which the members have since discovered is that some of the figures had been doctored in transit. For instance, last week, the Senate discovered a sum of N10 billion “questionably smuggled” into the budget of the Ministry of Education for a ‘questionable subhead’. Earlier this week, the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, disowned his ministry’s budget, saying “rats” had doctored the proposal.
In the words of the Minister, “we have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee. “This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there.”
His Works Power and Housing Ministry counterpart , Babatunde Fashola did not own up in the public to his Ministry’s budget being doctored. What he did however summed it up. While appearing before the House of Representatives joint Committees on Power, Works and Housing, evaded questions on a certain N500 million proposed for “statutory” meetings and travels. The allocation also covered street light, generators and other items but locations of projects were not provided.
In the words of the Minister, “we have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee. “This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there.”
His Works Power and Housing Ministry counterpart , Babatunde Fashola did not own up in the public to his Ministry’s budget being doctored. What he did however summed it up. While appearing before the House of Representatives joint Committees on Power, Works and Housing, evaded questions on a certain N500 million proposed for “statutory” meetings and travels. The allocation also covered street light, generators and other items but locations of projects were not provided.
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