Senate Blasts Buhari’s N135bn Virement Request As Unconstitutional

The frosty relationship between the Senate and executive seems not to be patching up as the lawmakers on Thursday described as unconstitutional request by the executive for virement of N135bn from the 2017 budget to execute certain priority projects.

President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki. Had to plead with his colleagues not to throw out the request and got them to refer the request to the Committee on Appropriation.

“Before virement could be considered, the senate should have seen a more significant level of implementation, but this is in line with Senate’s commitment to give support to the executive as much as possible within the law,” Saraki said.

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, speaking on the request described virement as unconstitutional and undemocratic.

Ekweremadu argued that if the government wanted to complete some of its priority projects, it should present a supplementary budget and not deny other sectors of projects already approved.

“Virement is unconstitutional. We must uphold the constitution. When reforming the budget, we should take note of this. You can only spend money either through normal budget or through supplementary budget.

“This executive seems not to be interested in the process of budget. They prefer virement. The Appropriation Act is a law. We cannot just approve virement and it is not even in our constitution.

“We need to tell the executive that they can ask for a supplementary budget and not for virement. If the executive wants money in the future, they should come through a supplementary budget,” he said.

Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Danjuma Goje, also took jibe at the executive, frowning at what he said was selective implementation of projects by the Federal Government.

He urged the senate to ensure that the government does not continue the trend of implementing selected priority project and deviating from the approved budget.

Most of the senators who contributed kicked against the request and demanded that it be thrown out.