THERE are certain stories, when told, that should be dismissed without further thought about its veracity or otherwise, either be- cause it defies reasoning, rational explanation or because it could be a fudge. That is what came to my mind immediately the story of the missing budget became public. The budget document is not what you easily misplace especially considering its importance. Apart from that, this document did not come from outer space. The budget was presented to a joint session of the two chambers by President Muhammadu Buhari. It was not done in secret but in an open session. Something definitely is fishy about the entire episode. Incidentally, the document which was missing in the senate was intact in the House of Representatives.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin said that there was no truth to insinuations that the 2016 budget document was missing. He said that the claims may have been inspired by the initial insufficiency of the copies of the budget available to all the lawmakers. “ As far as I am concerned, that story does not hold water.
We are expecting copies to be print- ed and sent to the National Assembly, but there was a bit of delay”The version told by the Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara was different.
He said the report on mission document emanated from lack of efforts to ascertain facts. He then directed the Clerk of the House to display copies of the document, and admonished the media and ‘those’ behind the report to “let us get our facts right before making statements like this”.
But it was not the same with the Senate, with the matter becoming more complex with the contradictory statement coming from the upper chambers. Spokesman of the Senate, Aliyu Abdullahi had denied that the document was missing. “To the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any missing budget (document). What we discussed … is how we are going to work assiduously, as Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to consider the budget as submitted by the president. Added to this, we have agreed that we should work hard to make sure that by the end of February the budget is ready for approval or assent by the President”.
This contradicted the Senate President’s position that a committee had been set up to search for the missing document specially with presidency denying taking the document.
Curiously, all these became moot when the senate said it had discovered what happened to the document, that it was taken by President Buhari’s Senior Special Adviser (SSA), Senator Ita Enang and replaced with another document different from what the president presented to the lawmakers…the figures were different.
The senate said it would only work with the one presented to it by the president and not the one by Senator Enang.
I have many issues concerning this. Why would the SSA withdraw the document without going through the appropriate channel ? From whom was the document withdrawn without going through due process leading to the embarrassing public debate on what be- came of the document?
If the SSA had done the appropriate thing, would we have such an embarrassing debate? Also the document which the Reps displayed, which one is it? Is it the Enang’ s budget or that of the president?
Which of the documents would the Reps work with? The senate has re- solved to work with what the president presented, I thought that was the document said to be missing in the first place.
It is obvious that we are not being told about what really happened and it is the right of Nigerians to know.
Would the SSA withdraw the budget on his own and get it amended without a higher authority than himself sanctioning it? The presidency equally lied to Nigerians that it did not take the document. The withdrawal of the budget document must have been sanctioned by the presidency.
Enang works for the presidency.
Please we need more information. The senate should further probe the matter and tell Nigerians what happened and why we have two different budget documents flying around.