To resolve the inconsistencies and alleged padding of the 2016 budget proposal discovered by various Standing Committees during interface with the Ministers and Heads of Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee is to hold special budget defence session with the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Minister of Budget and Planning, Udo Ndoma.
Also invited by the Committees are the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) and the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation.
Chairman House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who spoke on the presentation of the 2016 budget so far, revealed that all budget proposals of the MDAs presented by House Standing Committees, have been harmonised with their Senate counterparts.
He said: “By tomorrow (Friday) we will finish taking the reports; we have agreed that we will invite the Minister of Budget and Planning, Minister of Finance, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Director of Budget Office and Central Bank Governor and engage them extensively on the entire budget.
“We also have pending issues on the 2015 budget, so they have to come with 2015 budget performance and then we will go into special session,” Jibrin stated.
The lawmaker also directed the Clerk of the Committee to liaise with the office of the Clerk of the House to access members’ data base for easy dispatch of messages to all the 360 members and various committees for final submission and consideration of the MDAs budget.
It was learnt that only 15 committees out of the 97 Standing Committees have so far submitted and defended their budget before the Appropriations Committee.
A communication from the Appropriations Committee which was read in the floor yesterday by the Speaker Yakubu Dogara, instructed chairmen of all the standing Committees to submit and defend their MDAs budget by Friday (today) or risk zero budget in the 2016 budget.
Jibrin warned that the last session of the budget defence would hold today and would commence by 8am.