N’Assembly Shifts Budget Passage to Second Week of March

House resumes plenary Tuesday Ndume: Senate working with executive to pass appropriation bill

Damilola Oyedele

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Jibrin Abdulmumim, has said the National Assembly would pass the 2016 budget proposal into law latest by the second week of March 2016.

The lifespan of the 2015 Appropriation Act would elapse in March 2016.

Abdulmumim said this to clear the air following uncertainty towards the timely passage of the 2016 budget proposal which has been discovered to contain errors.

The lawmakers had earlier promised to pass the budget by February 25, 2016.

Speaking at the opening of budget defence by the House committees before the Committee on Appropriation yesterday, Abdulmumim said the committee would meet with the Ministers of Finance and Budget, “if necessary”, to clarify issues surrounding the errors in the budget.

He disclosed that the ongoing budget defence by the committees that have already approved the budget proposals of the agencies they oversight, would continue until Friday.

At the session, the Chairman of the House Committee on Road Safety, Hon. Ahmed Yinusa, explained that the publicity budget of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) was increased to N56 million from N16 million due to the cost of creating awareness in print and electronic media.

“The FRSC is not a revenue generating agency, if people adhere to the rules, the roads become safer, and our revenue reduces. Reduction of revenue shows efficiency of the FRSC,” he said.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives would resume plenary today after a two-week suspension to allow the standing committees hold budget defence for the agencies they oversight.

The lawmakers are expected to continue discussions concerning the budget.

Still on the budget issue, Senate Leader, Mr. Ali Ndume, yesterday said the National Assembly especially the Senate was working with the executive to ensure the harmonisation and speedy passage of the 2016 budget,.

Ndume while speaking to State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday said the budget was riddled with errors and needed the collective input of the appropriate stakeholders to make it work.

He said: “I hope you people know that I am the Senate Leader and this is APC government. So if the Senate Leader comes to see the vice-president or the president in the Villa, is it supposed to be a surprise? I guess it is because, most often, I come in the night but this time, I came in the afternoon and it became very strange.

“There are issues that are really on the ground. One is the budget. We also have two bills before the Senate that we need to start working on when we resume tomorrow: The Money Laundering Bill and the Criminal Information Sharing Bill

“There are issues other than those ones that are really on the ground. This is how we are supposed to be doing it earlier. That is, coming into the Villa to consult and guide the proceedings in the Senate appropriately.

“Other than that, I don’t want you to see it as an unusual visit. I will be doing this often because this is how it is supposed to be.

“Again, I normally consult with the president on a personal basis long before he became the president, so it is not unusual.

“We are working on the budget daily. We are working on it collectively for the first time. The executive and the legislature are looking at the budget collectively.

This is the first time we will be doing it this way. The matter is not about a date, if we can finish it today, we will hand it over for signature tomorrow.

“In those days, we just passed budgets that are normally not implemented. This is the first time we are doing a budget that the president is looking forward to implement.

“This budget was done in a hurry and you know there are some issues that are cropping up. It is no longer going to be business as usual. So those unusual things, if detected, we will work on them. It is not as if we are holding on to the budget. We are working collectively.”

He also dismissed insinuations that he was in the villa to mediate for the embattled senate president who is facing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over his assets declaration.