Missing Budget: Saraki, Buhari Meet Behind Closed Doors
The documents of the 2016 budget handed over by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015 have been reportedly declared missing, Premium Times informs.
As the Nigerian Senate was going to commence deliberation on the proposed budget today, Tuesday, Senate leader Ali Ndume disclosed that the hard and soft copies of the budget documents had been stolen.
According to people familiar with the matter, Ndume explained that deliberation on the budget could therefore not begin until fresh copies of the documents were obtained from the presidency, the Ministry of Finance or that of national planning.
Danjuma Goje, the chairman of Senate Committee of Appropriation, was appointed to lead a search for the documents and liaise with the presidency, the senior special assistant to the president on National Assembly matters, Ita Enang, and the national planning ministry on the matter.
Sources also disclosed that the Senators wanted to keep the matter under wraps as it could embarrass the presidency, the National Assembly and the country.
Senators of the Peoples Democratic Party reportedly accused the presidency of being behind the theft of the documents. However, an accusation was rejected by their All Progressives Congress’ counterparts.
Premuim Times reports that some lawmakers said they are suspicious that the presidency might have colluded with the management of the National Assembly to quietly withdraw the documents after detecting some discrepancies in them.
“Can you imagine this kind of national embarrassment? Documents that were presented to us with fanfare have been stolen,” one senator said.
Aliyu Abdullahi, the spokesperson for the Senate, could not been reached for comments, as well as Mr. Goje, the chairman of the appropriation committee.
President Muhammad Buhari had presented a N6.08 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2016. It was the first time in three years a Nigerian President would personally present a budget before the National Assembly.
In the budget, capital expenditure takes N1.8 trillion, marking a significant over 300% increment from the 2015 vote of N557 billion. N396 billion is voted for education, the largest sectoral allocation. The health sector gets N296 billion, while defence has N294 billion.
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