Presidency, Reps confirm Buhari’s letter correcting errors in 2016 budget

The Presidency and the House of Representatives have confirmed that  President Muhammadu Buhari has written a letter to the National Assembly, correcting errors in the 2016 budget.

This is even as the Senate has denied knowledge of such a letter.

With debate on general principles of the budget scheduled to begin from Tuesday this week, controversy had trailed alleged withdrawal of the budget, with the upper legislative chamber accusing the Presidency of doctoring the original budget document.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki had accused Presidential aide, Ita Enang of smuggling a ‘fake’ budget into the chambers, insisting that the Senate would only consider the document submitted by President Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22, 2015.

But a source in the Presidency who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to one of our correspondents that the President had written to the National Assembly correcting errors in the 2016 budget.

According to the source, the letter was prepared since Thursday last week and delivered on Friday.

“The major issue arose from the criticism on the car issue. But after Tuesday, everything will calm down”, the source stated.

Also, sources from the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara confirmed the receipt of the letter from the Presidency.

The source who did not want her name mentioned, however, assured that the letter would be read on the floor of the House during Tuesday’s plenary session.

When contacted, Abdulrazak Namdas, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs denied knowledge about the withdrawal letter from the Presidency.

He said: “I am not aware of a letter on the withdrawal of the budget. As I told you last week we are only ready to commence discussion on the budget this week by the grace of God.

“If something comes we will continue with what we have. Assuming there is any letter, we have to receive that before we comment on it,” Namdas said.

But in a telephone chat with BusinessDay on Sunday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Samuel Anyanwu who also headed the search panel for the ‘missing’ document, said he is not aware if President Buhari had written to the National Assembly correcting errors in the budget.

When asked to confirm the veracity of the story, Anyanwu said: “I’m not aware of that”.

Also, when contacted to speak on the issue, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, declined comments and asked our correspondent to confirm from any of the aides of Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

On his part, Sanni Onogu, Chief Press Secretary to the Senate President, told our one of our correspondents in a telephone interview that he is not aware if any letter has been written by the President.

Meanwhile, sources have informed BusinessDay that the Presidency has passed a new copy of 2016 budget proposal to the National Assembly for consideration by lawmakers.

According to the sources, a new soft copy of the budget had been sent to the two chambers of the National Assembly around 4.30pm on Thursday.

It was gathered that the soft copy was passed on to the lawmakers ahead of the commencement of debate on the budget proposal, which holds from Tuesday to Thursday this week.

 

KEHINDE AKINTOLA, ELIZABETH ARCHIBONG & OWEDE AGBAJILEKE