2018 Budget: National Assembly addresses Buhari's concerns

- The National Assembly has explained why it made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the 2018 budget

- The lawmakers said they decided to alter the budget in order “to balance between the six geo political zones” across the country

- They also claimed they delayed the budget in order to do a thorough work on it

The National Assembly has explained why it delayed the 2018 budget and made a cut of N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted for consideration and why it introduced new 6,403 projects amounting to N578 billion.

Recall that Legit.ng earlier reported that President Muhammadu Buhari, while signing the 2018 budget on Wednesday, June 20, said many of the projects cut by the National Assembly were essential ones while many of those inserted were not relevant to the federal government.

The president also complained that the National Assembly took too long before passing the budget, Premium Times reports.

Bala Na’ Allah, the deputy leader of the Senate who represented Senate president Bukola Saraki, and the chief whip of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Doguwa, who represented Speaker Yakubu Dogara, said the lawmakers had no option than to tinker with the budget estimates.

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Na' Allah said: “The way the budget came, if we had allowed it to go that way, we would have been in trouble with those who elected us."

The senator also said they decided to alter the budget in order “to balance between the six geo political zones” across the country. He said it is the “balancing efforts” by the National Assembly that led to the observations raised by Buhari.

Doguwa, on his part, said: “Certainly you wouldn’t expect us to just rubber stamp and just bring it back. We have to do the nitty-gritty of budget consideration.”

The chief whip also said they had to tinker with the budget because “Whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well and we have done what we think is the right thing to do to deliver on the expectations and the mandate bestowed on us by the people of our constituencies.”

While addressing President Buhari's decision to submit a supplementary budget for the consideration of lawmakers, the lawmakers said they would look into it and pass it faster than the main budget.

Na' Allah said: “Happily enough, he himself has said he is coming with a supplementary budget which will be dealt with as quickly as possible, I assure you about that one."

“We will also at the same time be at liberty to look at the president’s concerns and those things he wants us to now review and I want to believe the National Assembly is always in a position to work hand in hand with Mr President," Doguwa said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that the federal government is making final preparation to disburse $322 million fund repatriated from the accounts of former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha in Switzerland to Nigerians.

The national coordinator of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Nigeria and special assistant to the President on justice reforms, Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu disclosed this recently in an interactive session with newsmen.

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Source: Legit.ng