Senate fingers Buhari’s aide in budget tampering

THE dust over this year’s budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22 last year is yet to settle as the Senate declared yesterday that the document had been tampered with allegedly by the Presidency. Hence, the Upper Chamber is insisting that only the one submitted by Buhari would be worked on.

The Senate also confirmed that the current budget in the custody of the National Assembly is fake and was allegedly smuggled into the National Assembly by the Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on National Assembly Matters (Sen- ate), Senator Ita Enang.

The revelation came after an executive session that was held by the Senate, which lasted for about two hours. The Senate had just resumed the business of the day when it suddenly an- nounced that it was going into an executive session to consider the report of its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions which investigated the controversies over the ‘missing’ budget. Thereafter, the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, announced that the Red Chamber would not consider the copy of the budget that has been tampered with by the Presidency.

He said: “We have received the report of the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on investigations surrounding 2016 Appropriation Bill. Our finding is that Senator Ita Enang, the SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters printed copies on the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought to the Senate.

“We have discovered that what he brought is different from the version presented by Mr. President. We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr. President as soon as we receive soft copies of the original document from the executive,” Saraki noted.
The Senate adjourned sitting immediately and is expected to resume next week Tuesday to begin the consideration of the budget, subject to the availability of the hard copies.

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee Chairman on Media and Publicity, Senator Abdullahi Sabi, who briefed newsmen after the executive session, re-echoed the earlier position of the Senate President and gave more insights into what played out during the closed door session.

He said the unnecessary bickering and misunderstanding over the missing budget would have been avoided, if the Presidency had not tampered with it during the mass production of hard cop- ies which was later submitted to the National Assembly.

He said the Senate discovered the discrepancies when it received the copies from Enang. But Sabi refused to disclose the discrepancies discovered in the budget by the Senate.

He said: “The report about a missing budget is not true. We do not have a budget that is missing. But you recalled that the Senate President did inform Nigerians that there is an issue that a committee was asked to investigate. The investigation by the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions has been submitted in the executive session. It was a decision we took at the last executive session.

“Our findings are these. That Mr . President did lay the budget before the joint session of the National Assembly and there-after, the Senate went on recess and upon resumption, copies of the document were produced by Senator Ita Enang, who is the SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate ) and the copies were submitted to Senate and House of Representatives.

“What we found out is that the document submitted by Senator Enang, upon our resumption, has some differences, discrepancies with what was originally laid by Mr. President in the joint sitting of the National Assembly.

“However, the Senate in defence of its own integrity and honour, will not work with what has not been laid on the floor of the National Assembly. We are constitutionally mandated and duty bound to consider only that budget that had been so laid by Mr President.”

“Right now, for reproduction, we are awaiting the soft copy of the originally submitted budget so that the National Assembly can reproduce the copy itself. That is the only time we can have confidence in the document we want to work with.

“The budget submitted by the President is not missing. We already have copies of it, but what we are saying is that for us to reproduce for our members, it is easier, based on the quantum of document that has to be produced, that we get the soft copy of that original version so that we can reproduce it,” he said.

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