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Nigeria: Senators, Reps to Submit Budget Details to Yar'Adua
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Vanguard (Lagos)
23 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Emmanuel Aziken
Abuja
The National Assembly in apparent submission to the Presidency is to present the details of the 2008 budget as requested by President Umaru Yar'Adua to him Monday, next week, Sunday Vanguard has gathered. The delay in presenting the budget details to the president was said to be the result of the failure of the House Committee on Works to provide the details of its allocations in the 2008 budget.
A senior official of the National Assembly who confirmed this development said that all the committees in the Senate and House of Representatives were directed to work out their details. Yar'Adua had refused to give his assent to the bill on the basis that what was presented to him did not contain the details of the sectoral allocations to the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) fearing that he could be ensnared.
Besides, the president is believed to have been still peeved by the retention of some mandatory clauses in the budget bill which require administration officials to implement the budget as approved by the National Assembly. It could, however, not be confirmed weekend if the National Assembly would unbend on the issue of the mandatory clauses especially as the president is not known to have formally complained on the issue to the National Assembly leadership.
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Giving an inclination of the National Assembly on the issue of the budget details, a senior National Assembly official confirmed that the chairmen of the Appropriation Committees of the two chambers had been directed to prepare the details for onward transmission to the president. "Yes, if I were the president, I would not have signed the budget without the details because it could be dangerous," the senior National Assembly official disclosed. As at weekend, it was learnt that the committees with the exception of the House Committee on Works had presented their details which would then be taken to the president next week Monday.
Yar'Adua had presented a N2.3 trillion spending plan to the National Assembly last November but the two chambers jacked up the budget to N2.8 trillion compelling the president to return the budget to the National Assembly.
The Senate in its review had reduced the budget to N2.7 trillion but retained some of the mandatory clauses the president objected to.
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