February 25 deadline for passage of 2016 budget not feasible – N/Assembly tells Nigerians

Leadership of the National Assembly Joint Committees on Appropriations on Tuesday disclosed that the February 25, slated for the passage of the 2016 budget was no longer feasible.

Danjuma Goje and Abdulmumin Jibrin, chairmen, Senate and House Committees on Appropriations who spoke at a joint press briefing on the ongoing budget defence, alleged that the delay was caused by the controversies trailing the over-bloated overhead costs and other fictitious insertion observed by various standing committees.

Isaac Adewole, minister of health, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Health on Monday, requested for the withdrawal of the ministry’s budget proposal, alleging it was flooded with different subheads unknown to him.

Adewole however pledged to submit a reviewed budget for the committee’s consideration.

Likewise, the Senate Committee on Education alleged that the sum of N10 billion was tucked into the education budget.

Goje, who did not give a new date for the submission of the report to both chambers, noted that the ongoing budget defence witnessed disagreement between the committees and ministers.

He said the two committees were saddled with the responsibility to produce final and clean copy of the 2016 budget for President’s assent and implementation.

“We are here in connection with the ongoing budget process. There have been controversies surrounding the budget. We want to clarify some issues on the budget.

“All of us are aware of the imbalances in the capital and overheads components. It will be inappropriate to give certain date because we don’t know the enormity of the problem,” Goje posited.

The committees, according to Abdulmumin Jibrin, chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, were initially given a deadline of February 25 to submit its report to the Senate and House for consideration.

Jibrin, who denied report on the alleged crisis between the Legislature and Executive, insisted that due process must be followed and remove all ambiguities, in order to avoid the budget being returned back to the National Assembly.

“We came to inform you about the timetable for the budget. A lot of issues have come up; even the Executive arm came out to say there were lot of errors. We discovered over-bloated personnel costs.

“But our committees will have to sit down and clean up the budget so that it will be implementable. The date is no longer realistic because the two committees will have to do a thorough clean up of the budget,” Jibrin said.

KEHINDE AKINTOLA