National Assembly to Buhari: We increased projects to promote federal character
It explained that projects and votes in the 2018 budget were rejigged to correct the alleged imbalance in Buhari’s version of the bill.
According to the legislature, projects as proposed in the bill violated the federal character and did not reflect the needs of ordinary Nigerians.
The President, while assenting to the bill on Wednesday, had complained about the increment of the 2018 budget from the proposed N8.612tn to N9.12tn, as well as the adjustments made to the estimates.
Buhari had said in part, “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578bn.”
However, the National Assembly stated that the reduction of allocations to the proposed projects and re-allocation of votes to others in the budget were made in order to address geopolitical imbalances in the budget presented by the executive.
The Chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi and Mr. Abdul-Razak Nandas, respectively made the National Assembly’s position known at a joint press conference in Abuja on Friday.
It said, “Adjustments and reductions in the locations, costs and number of projects approved were made in order to address geopolitical imbalances that came with the executive proposal. The introduction of new projects was done to ensure the promotion of the principles of Federal Character as contained in Section 14 (3) of the 1999 Constitution.
“The number of projects had to be increased in order to give a sense of belonging to every geopolitical zone of the country to ensure socio-economic justice, equity, fairness, and to command national loyalty.
“Within the context of the provisions of Sections 4, 80 and 81 of the Constitution, everything that the National Assembly has done is within its powers.”
The legislature also blamed officials in the executive of misinforming the President on the true state of the Federal Government projects across the country.
“It is our firm belief that if the President had been properly briefed by his appointees, he would not have raised most of the concerns that he did in his remarks at the budget signing. It is therefore inevitable for the legislature to give members of the public an insight into what transpired during the appropriation process and how we arrived at the decisions that are contained in the 2018 budget,” the National Assembly said.
Reacting to the allegation by the President that the passage of the budget by the legislature was delayed for six months, the lawmakers recalled that heads of Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies were forced by Buhari himself to appear before legislative committees to defend their budget proposals five months and eight days after the bill was presented.
“In addition, up till April, six months after the budget submission, the executive was still bringing new additions to the 2018 budget, which the National Assembly in good faith and in the spirit of collaboration and harmonious working relationship accepted,” the lawmakers noted.
Although the National Assembly did not fault the 6,403 inserted projects in the budget, it faulted the claim that they were worth N578bn.
The lawmakers said, “It was stated that the legislature made cuts amounting to N347bn, which were meant for 4,700 projects. Again, these reductions of N347bn were made from low priority areas to higher priority areas to support the generation of employment.
Punchng
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