Posted on: 10:24 Fri, 15 Jan 2016



The crisis brewing as regards the 2016
Budget which was declared missing by
the National Assembly upon plenary
session resumption has ridiculed the
nation.

The 2016 Budget crisis however took
another turn on Thursday when the
Senate leadership said that the budget
is not missing but accused the
Presidency of making fake copies of the
budget.

However, the President through the
House Presidential Liaison Officer
Sumaila Kawu, said the drama over the
budget is “laughable”. The President
cannot direct his agents to “steal” the
document.

According to him, the President has no
reason to smuggle the document out of
the Senate because he is aware of
options he can explore to withdraw the
document.

He also described the accusation
directed at his Senate counterpart, Sen.
Ita Enang as “unfair” because the
former senator is an experienced
lawmaker who once chaired Rules and
Business Committees in the House and
in the Senate.

Kawu said the missing budget rumour
may have been strengthened by the
locking away of the document in the
Clerk of the National Assembly’s office.

He said: “It is a suprise to us and Mr
President in particular; it is laughable.

We just laughed when we heard of it.
“Being a joint sitting , Mr President
laid one document on the floor; then it
is for the Budget Office or National
Planning Commission (NPC) to make
copies.

“In this case, once it was laid, the Clerk
of the National Assembly locked the
document in his office because of the
time of the year; it was holiday period
and the lawmakers were going on
holiday.

“The confusion might have been as a
result of that.

“But our concern in this matter is why
we were dragged into it.

“Actually, as our job entails, we lobbied
the National Assembly to take a second
look at the oil benchmark because our
projection was no longer in tune with
the current reality.

“We lobbied the National Assembly on
the benchmark; it was not illegal or
alien to legislature world over and it
has nothing to do with stealing or
smuggling it out of the Senate.

“We, as the Executive, have to take
account of the volatile nature of oil
price. The National Assembly was
aware of this, but notwithstanding we
still have no reason to withdraw it.

“Even if the document must be
withdrawn, it must be done legally and
there are laid down means of doing
that, which the President can explore.
“Buhari will be the last person to
assign his agent to be involved in such
illegality.”

The presidential aide said the sad
development was not a matter of lack
of communication between the
Executive and legislature but an act of
mischief by those behind it.

He defended Enang, saying:

“Enang is a hands-on legislator that
knows the rules. He was Chairman of
Rules and Business committees of the
House and Senate, so he knows the
rules.

“This is the same lawmaker that tackled
the then Minister of Finance, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, on different versions of
Budget being implemented.

“He is very much aware of what is at
stake and couldn’t have involved
himself in such an illegality”.

On whether the budget may be
withdrawn as a result of the crashing
global oil price, Kawu said there was
no plan for that.

“We will not withdraw the because the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework
(MTEF) has taken into consideration a
situation like this.

“We are aware that for Saudi Arabia to
raise her domestic oil price and the
United States exporting oil means
there’s a problem.

“That was the reason why
diversification of economy is a priority
to this government, this budget wasn’t
oil-dependent,” he said.