The Chairman House of Representatives
Committee on Appropriations, Honourable
Abdulmumin Jibrin, said that there is no
truth to insinuations that the 2016 budget
document is 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 were expecting copies
to be printed and sent to the National
Assembly but there was a bit of delay.
“As at yesterday, I can confirm to you that
the Appropriation Committee in the House
received a lot of copies of the budget. By
the time the Clerk counted it today, it was
not sufficient to go round members.
“I spoke with the Minister of Planning
earlier today [Tuesday] and he assured me
that before the end of today he will deliver
the remaining copies.
“For the soft copy I also reminded him and
he sent it to me and I handed it over to the
House,” he explained.
Honourable Jibrin said the rumour of
missing budget may have been triggered
by the delay in the production of more
copies of the budget.
“You should realise that we have a new
government in place and I think that there
is little issue of communication gap and
they are trying to get themselves settled.
We should be able to excuse them and
support the President wherever there is a
bit of limitation from his own side,” he told
Channels Television’s
correspondent, Charles Eruka.
Earlier, the Senate President, Bukola
Saraki, after a closed door meeting with
President Muhammadu Buhari declined to
comment on the budget issue when
reporters asked him questions about the
alleged missing 2016 budget.
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