Information reaching us has shown that the National Assembly has finally transmitted the controversial 2016 national budget to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent, but that there are still some grey areas that needed to be tackled before the Presidential assent.
Informed source at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, confirmed that the budget was ‘transmitted’ to the President but that he cannot sign it without details.
The source hinted that what was presented to the President was what he called: “highlights of the document” without the required “details.”
The new development, according to the Presidency, has confirmed the speculation that the National Assembly either did not complete work on the budget or is playing politics with the documents.
The President, the source said, is very anxious to sign the budget so that implementation can start immediately to ease the tension in the economy and polity, but that he is afraid not to sign a budget whose details later, would make it impossible to implement.
The Presidency accused the National Assembly of trying to shift the blame for the delay in the budget implementation to President Buhari, a situation the Presidency described as “sabotage”.
The source said: “the President has just received the transmission of the Appropriation Bill (2016 budget) from the National Assembly and is very anxious to sign it into law, but the National Assembly only sent in the highlights without the details.
“As a result, the president has been handicapped in signing the bill because he does not know what is contained in the details and what adjustments the National Assembly must have made to the proposal sent to them.
“Although he is anxious to sign the document so that implementation of the provisions could start immediately and ease the tension in the economy and polity, he is afraid he may later discover, when the details are sent, the what is contained therein is not implementable.
“He (President Buhari) wishes the National Assembly could send in the details speedily so that it could be considered for assent.
“Ministers are also eager that the budget be signed so they could start implementing their programmes, but they are unable to push the President to sign what has been transmitted because they also do not know what is contained in the details.
“They are particularly worried that the year is gradually aging and the provision of the law in respect of spending the previous year’s budget is not helping matters because of the low capital provision for 2015.
“Because of the low provision made last year for capital expenditure, spending 50 percent of that provision for the first half of this year will make no impact on provision of infrastructure.
“The Budget Office cannot also work on the Budget for implementation because it is the details, and not the highlights, that they convert into implementable templates for the respective ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
“This development confirms speculations that the National Assembly either did not complete work on the budget or are playing politics with the documents which affects the life of both the country and its citizens.
“The National Assembly may just have passed the bill to pass the buck to the executive and escape the wrath of the public which was gradually suspecting it of sabotage.”
Source: Daily Trust. [myad]
