The politics of ‘missing’ 2016 budget

THE dust over the whereabouts of the 2016 Appropriation recently presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Bu­hari last month seems not yet ready to settle. Rather, confusion over the matter is spreading .

In the National Assembly the matter has split the House of Rep­resentatives and the Senate . The two chambers are singing discordant tune. It is the first time the two chambers, in this session , would take a disparate position on any national issue .

While the senate claimed the budget is not in its custody , the House declared that the estimates are with it.

The whole thing crept into the scene in a toga of rumor . That was two weeks ago. First , there was speculation about the presidency withdrawing the budget. The claim was quickly debunked by the presidential aide on National Assembly, Ita Enang. He told Daily Sun, “the budget is here, i am even making copies”.

The denial however lasted for few days before a new twist to it emerged. Some senators shocked Nigerians with claims that the budget was missing . Initially, many gave a cold shoulder to the claim. But the rumour rather than ease out garnered more bite. And that was the reason the Senior Spe­cial Assistant to the President on Media , Garba Shehu had to step out to dissociate the presidency from the claim.

Shehu, defended the Presidency, noting that President Buhari has not withdrawn the budget as spec­ulated in the media.

Shehu in a series of tweets via his Twitter handle @GarShehu said: “Enquiries about the budget: No­body except the President can withdraw the budget. As far as we know, he hasn’t done that.

“The copies in their hundreds have been delivered to both cham­bers of the National Assembly.

But if Garba’s exoneration of the President was meant to put oaid to the matter, the admission by the Senate President that the where­abouts of the budget was, indeed, unknown stopped such expecta­tion. Saraki’s admittance has, natu­rally, given more vent to the claim.

The Senate President who met with President Buhari for an un­disclosed reason last Tuesday, at the plenary of Wednesday which he presided tried to clear the air on the matter . The move was pro­voked by a Point of Order raised by Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia South).

Abaribe, who interjected Saraki while he was making a remark, had demanded that the Senate leader­ship should tell Nigerians the true status of the budget. He claimed that he had been inundated with calls from his constituents who he said were worried about the whereabouts of the 2016 budget.

That was not all. Abaribe posted the clincher. He disclosed that the missing budget was part of the is­sues discussed during the Execu­tive Session of the Senate on Tues­day. He added that it was no longer permissible to keep mum on the whereabouts of the budget, while Nigerians were being kept in the dark.

Hear him”The matter that I refer to is what is in every newspaper today and everywhere in all the talkshows in the radio of a missing budget. Therefore Mr President, I want to bring to you attention and all my colleagues that yesterday in our closed session, this matter also came up.

“Some of us who are worried have been inundated by messages from our constituents who are re­ally worried about what their fate will be in 2016, and are asking us, where is our budget? That is why Mr President, I think it is definite and it is urgent that we look into this matter”.

Pushed to the wall, the Senate President said the issue could not be discussed, as the panel set up to ascertain the whereabouts of the 2016 budget was yet to report back to the Senate.

He said: “Because of the impor­tance of this, I will make an excep­tion. You know we are all part of the decision at the close session yesterday and part of that decision we are still waiting for those we have referred to carry out the as­signment to come back to us.

“I think they will come back to us by tomorrow (today). I think they will come back to us by to­morrow and we will go into a closed ses­sion and finish up the report and we will be able to debate it properly.”

The Senate President went ahead and announced that the lawmakers of the Red Chamber would be given copies of the budget today, Thursday, 15th January, 2016.

He also revealed that the Senate would commence the consideration of the said budget next week Tuesday, 20th January, 2016. The announcement made by Saraki that copies will be made avail­able to lawmakers today didnt sink well with some of his colleagues. The confu­sion is understandable. How can the sane man who said the whereabouts of the bud­get and that the panel set up to ascertain the whereabouts of the estimates was yet to submit its report be talking of kicking off consideration of the same estimates.

“The consideration of the 2016 budget will commence on Tuesday next week. Senators are encouraged to prepare them­selves for the exercise. The copies of the budget will distributed to Senators on Thursday, 15 January, 2016,” Saraki told his colleagues.

The opposition is happy with the claim that the budget is missing. It has given them an ample opportunity to get at the rul­ing party. For the PDP senators the whole thing has proved that APC government is not organised and is not a bellwether for leadership as it has tried to showcase it­self.

“Nigerians have seen what APC is, it has been toying with our budget, the same budget it claims will take Nigeria to a promised land”, a PDP senator who plead­ed for anonymity said.

But the question, how can the senate claim that the budget is missing? This is one question that is asked in several quarters but which answer is yet to be provided. Is it possible that the cham­ber was engaging in a hoax? Could it also be that there is actually an agree­ment between the senate leadership and the presidency to further look at the budget but PDP senators got a wind of that and decided to torpedo the plans?

Certainly there are things happening around the budget that are kept away from Nigerians. But if there are plans to tinker with the budget, the House should have also been carried along.

Yes, Nigerians may not be availed the whole information on what is hap­pening to the budget at the moment but, sure, it will not take long before the secret would be laid bare for ev­erybody to see.

This is not the first time budgets handed to the National Assembly would throw up ripples and be a sub­ject of controversy. In fact, it has be­come a norm that a ding dong would trail every year’s budget. During the PDP era, it was an annual ritual that the Presidency and National As­sembly must lock horn over budgets. National Assembly was frequently buffeted with allegation of padding budgets. The situation, all the time, resulted in the signing of those bud­gets being stalled .

The tenor of the debate may have changed, the issue remains the same -that 2016 budget , like those before it since 1999 is in the vortex of con­troversy. Nigerians, as was the case in the previous experience, would not be inveigled by the flurry of denials coming from top government quarters on the matter but would, at the appro­priate time, place a handle on the poli­tics surrounding the ‘missing budget’.