Alhassan Doguwa, the lawmaker for the Doguwa/Tundun Wada Federal Constituency in Kano, has kicked against allegation President Bola Tinubu sent lawmakers the 2023 budget without details.
Opposition lawmaker, Yusuf Galambi, representing the Gwaram Federal Constituency in Jigawa, claimed on BBC Hausa Friday that Tinubu only submitted an empty document during his Wednesday budget presentation speech before the National Assembly.
Galambi said: “We checked the case of the document he presented and found it empty. In the history of the National Assembly, such an incident has never happened until this year and this is not what the constitution of the country said should be done.”
But addressing journalists, Doguwa insisted that the lawmakers had received Tinubu’s full budget submissions before his address at the joint session.
“What people don’t know is that President Tinubu had since submitted a flash drive of the whole budget before his presentation to the joint chambers,” Doguwa stated.
He described suggestions that the legislators only got empty 2023 budget documents as “baseless” and “unfounded.”
Doguwa emphasised that Tinubu gave out hard copies of his speech following protocol as well as a flash drive that had soft copies of the whole appropriations bill and estimates.
The lawmaker demanded end of willful fabrication of facts regarding the budget presentation exercise by the presidency.
According to him: “Stop the misrepresentation of facts, we did not receive empty 2024 budget boxes from President Tinubu.”
