Senate at a stormy closed-door session on Thursday resolved to persuade President Muhammadu Buhari to give his assent to the 2016 appropriation bill and later submit a supplementary budget to the National Assembly.
The senators also agreed to meet President Buhari before the end of the week to iron out all the grey areas causing the delay in the signing of the budget.
Recall that the President refused to sign the 2016 budget on the grounds that the National Assembly mutilated it.
Some of the capital projects affected include the N60 billion Lagos-Calabar rail project, which was removed by lawmakers; reduction of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway by N24 billion; reduction of Second Niger Bridge by N3.9 billion; Benin-Sagamu Road slashed by N800 million; Kano-Maiduguri-Ngala Rail cut by N260 million, among others.
The closed-door meeting, which was characterised by harsh criticisms of the manner in which the budget was processed by the Appropriation Committees of the National Assembly, was said to have resolved to give President Buhari 30 days within which to consider the request of the National Assembly and sign the budget.
Senators, who spoke on condition of anonymity shortly after the closed-door session, disclosed that it was an opportunity for frank discussions on the crisis rocking the Senate because of the budget.
Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriation who complained against what they called undemocratic approach to the budget process drew attention of their colleagues to specific lapses, which resulted from the mishandling of the process.
It was learnt that a major decision at the meeting was that serious and conclusive measures should be taken by both the National Assembly and Executive arm of government to make the 2016 budget ready for implementation.
At the meeting, it was said to have been observed that because time was no longer on the side of government on the need to kickstart the economy, no stone should be left unturned to fast track the signing of the budget into law.
Rising from the executive session, Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session declared that: “The Senate in a closed session deliberated on issues relating to the 2016 appropriation bill and the way forward for the quick resolutions of all the matters related to the early implementation of the budget in the best interest of our nation”
Speaking on the development, Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, denied that the meeting resolved to remove the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Danjuma Goje, pointing out that the President is yet to return the budget to the National Assembly.
On the Senate relationship with the President regarding the budget, he said: “We have seen the President already on the budget, in fact meeting the President by the Senate leadership is not a big deal.
“It is not true that the budget had been sent back to the National Assembly. I am also not aware that there is any communication from the President on the issue.
“What I know is that areas of concern to the Presidency are now with us here. We are talking with the Presidency to resolve all the issues.”
