Yesterday, the Senate declared that a discovery of strange projects in the second version of the budget 2016 document brought by the presidency to the National Assembly was responsible for
its rejection.
The Senate Majority Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume, disclosed that the second budget document failed a series of integrity tests carried out on it by the Senate. He confirmed that the Senate President, Saraki, would today unveil the contents of a letter sent to the Senate by Pres. Buhari.
The Senate, last Thursday, rejected the replacement of the original version submitted to it by Buhari. Providing further details on how the second budget document contradicted the original one, Ndume said: “What we tried to do was to make a comparative analysis.
The difference is not in the sub-total or sectorial allocation. The Senate did integrity check and found out that in some cases a certain amount of money was allocated to do two projects and because of integrity check, they found out that more projects were included in what that amount was voted for initially.
But what I can tell you now is that on the budget that was submitted originally, there were certain integrity checks on it that made some changes in the quantity of projects but not in the total amount of money voted. As at present, there are two documents and they are before the Senate. We are telling you now that we are taking the first one; we left the second one because we think it’s not good for Nigeria.”
Ndume lamented that the crisis generated by the fake budget issue might delay the Senate’s plan to get the budget passed before the end of February. His words: “We were targeting end of February to round off on the budget if not for this mix up. However, we are still committed to turning out the budget on time.”….. ds is d Nigeria of our dreams……
