Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has said that the report of the ad hoc committee set up to investigate the claims of the missing 2016 budget proposal indicated that the Senate received two versions of the document from the Presidency.
According to Saraki, the Senate received one version of the budget directly from President Muhammadu Buhari and the other from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang.
The Senate President, who stated this in a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Thursday, insisted that the budget was never missing as was being claimed.
He, however, said the Senate would accept only the budget presented directly by President Buhari.
He said, “The budget was never missing. While the President submitted one, his Senior Special Assistant, Ita Enang, submitted another. Hence the reason for an investigation!
“Today, the Senate received the report of the ad hoc committee setup to investigate the claims of the missing 2016 Budget.
“The report of the committee revealed that the Senate received two versions of the 2016 Appropriation Bill – one from President Muhammadu Buhari at the December 22nd, 2015 Joint Session of the National Assembly, and another from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang.
“The Senate will only accept the version of the appropriation bill that was presented by the President.”
After a closed-door session on Thursday, the Senate president said the copy of the 2016 budget made available to the Senate was different from the original copy presented by Buhari in December last year.
“What he distributed is different from what was presented by President and we have resolved not to address any version until we receive the version presented by Mr. President,” Saraki stated, referring to Enang.
Meanwhile, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has asked the National Assembly to impeach President Buhari, over the budget scandal rocking the National Assembly.
It also demanded the resignation of two ministers, and the central bank governor.
The PDP said in a statement signed by its acting national chairman, Uche Secondus, that its National Working Committee “rose from a meeting Thursday charging the National Assembly to commence impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari for the various constitutional breaches especially the submission of two version of the 2006 budget”.
The party said the National Assembly should thoroughly investigate the “shameful act, including the distortion and banding of figures to accommodate their personal interest and ensure that appropriate sanctions is meted to whoever has a hand in the dubious action that has brought embarrassment to the legislative body”.
The party also asked the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, to resign “having failed to provide the much needed capacity in the management of the nation’s economy resulting in the embarrassing crashing of the nation’s currency to as low as N305 to a dollar”.
Also, the party asked the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to resign “for plunging the country’s currency policy into chaos an action that thrown investors into total confusion”.
“We sympathizes with Nigerians who are seriously undergoing terrible hardship because of the now obvious inept leadership of APC despite the promise of one Naira to a dollar.
“What hope can a government that allows its currency to break a 43 year old record crashing to over N300 to one dollar offer and yet does not show it has clear focus of what to do,” the party said.
The party said that “APC government rather than address very grievous national issues created by its lack of capacity to govern has instead resorted to violation of peoples rights in the name of fighting corruption”.
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