Missing budget: Saraki accuses Presidency of doctoring 2016 budget

The controversy surrounding the missing 2016 budget assumed a new dimension on Thursday, as Senate president, Bukola Saraki, accused the Presidency of doctoring the original copy.

Specifically, Saraki accused the Presidency of smuggling in a fake budget, which is at variance with the earlier version submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015, to a joint session of the National Assembly.

This comes as the budget earlier presented by the President had been gazetted, even as members are yet to get copies.

Controversy had trailed the budget, following media reports of alleged withdrawal of the document for amendment, a situation that necessitated the Senate to set up a search committee chaired by the chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Samuel Anyanwu.

The Senate president, who made the revelation after a closed-door session that lasted for about three hours on Thursday, said the Senate had resolved to reject the ‘fake budget’ and “consider only the version presented by Mr. President.”

He, however, disclosed that the Senate was still awaiting the soft copy of the original budget from the Presidency, three weeks after it was presented to a joint session of the National Assembly.

He accused the senior special assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang of smuggling a ‘fake’ budget into the Senate.

His words: “We have received the report of the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on investigations surrounding 2016 Appropriation Bill.

“Our finding is that Senator Ita Enang, the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on National Assembly Matters printed copies on the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought to the Senate.

“We have discovered that what he brought is different from the version presented by Mr President. We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr President as soon as we receive soft copy of the original document from the Executive.”

But contrary to the promise of Saraki that the budget would be distributed on Thursday, Senate spokesperson, Sabi Abdullahi, confirmed as of 2:30pm that senators were yet to get copies of the document.

He clarified that the Senate would not sanction Enang since he was not appointed by the legislative chamber in the first instance.

Abdullahi corroborated Saraki’s statement by saying that the document submitted by Enang “has some differences with what was originally laid by Buhari”.

When asked to spot the difference between the two documents, the senator, however admitted that he was yet to see the two documents.

But in another twist, the 2016 budget earlier presented by Buhari on December 22 has been officially gazetted in the National Assembly Journal, in preparation for debate on general principles, scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday next week.

Dated January 12, 2016, with reference number NASSP 01/121/2016/900, the document obtained by BusinessDay, indicated that the budget was pegged at N6,077,680,000,00.

Breakdown of the budget shows that N351,370,000,000 is for Statutory Transfers; N1,475,320,000,000 is for debt servicing; N2,648,600,000,000 for Recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; N1,845,540,000,000 inclusive of N157,150,000,000 for Capital Expenditure in statutory transfers and N86,000,000,000 as interest on capitalised loans.

When contacted, Enang declined to comment on the issue, insisting that he would not want to join issues with the upper chamber.