2018 Budget: Did Buhari Vindicate Jubrin On 2016 Budget Padding?

President Muhammadu Buhari may have vindicated Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin by his allegation against the National Assembly on Wednesday that the just signed 2018 budget was padded by about N578 billion.

THE WHISTLER recalls that after his allegation against the House of Representatives that the first budget of the Buhari administration in 2016 was padded to the tune N40 billion, Mr Jubrin was suspended for 180 legislative days by the leadership of the House.

Jubrin had made the allegation against the leadership of the House comprising of Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Deputy Speaker, Mr Yussuff Lasun, the Chief Whip, Mr Alhassan Ado-Doguw, and the Minority Leader, Mr Leo Ogor.

Meanwhile, President Buhari, while speaking with the Nigerian community in Saudi Arabia in 2016, had denied ever coming across the term “budget padding” in his entire length of service to the nation.

Buhari had said, “I have been a military governor, petroleum minister, military Head of State and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund…Never had I heard the words “budget padding”. Our Minister of Budget and National Planning did a great job with his team. The Minister became almost half his size during the time, working night and day to get the budget ready, only for some people to pad it.”

The president added that what the NASS gave the Executive “was not what was finally being debated. It is very embarrassing and disappointing. We will not allow those who did it to go unpunished.”

He had promised to deal with the “culprits” involved in the act then, saying: “The culprits will not go unpunished.”

But speaking after signing the 2018 Appropriation Bill today, President Buhari expressed disappointment that the National Assembly allegedly removed projects “amounting to N347 billion” in the budget and added “6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion”.

The president said in a series of tweets: “I am concerned about some of the changes @nassnigeria has made to the budget proposals I presented. The logic behind the Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that, it is the Executive that knows & defines its policies & projects.

“Unfortunately, that has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me. The National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.

“Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by @nassnigeria have not been properly conceptualized, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute.

“As it is, some of these projects relate to matters that are the responsibility of the States and Local Governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.

“Such examples of projects from which cuts were made are as follows: Provisions for some nationally/regionally strategic infrastructure projects such as Counterpart funding for Mambilla Power Plant, 2nd Niger Bridge/ancillary roads, East-West Road, Bonny-Bodo Road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway & Itakpe-Ajaokuta Rail were cut by an aggregate of N11.5bn.

“At a time when we are working with Labour to address compensation-related issues, a total of 5 billion Naira was cut from the provisions for Pension Redemption Fund and Public Service Wage Adjustment.”