Dogara, Others To Face The Music As Presidency Dissociates Self From Budget Padding Scandal

The Presidency has said that the Appropriation Bill being implemented by President Muhammadu Buhari is the same as the one that was passed by the 8th National Assembly.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, denied any involvement by the presidency in the alleged padding of the 2016 Budget by the National Assembly.

This he said while responding to questions from the press at the All Progressives Congress (APC) national secretariat.

“We are here on the invitation of the leadership of the APC with my colleagues to bring answers to issues raised by the party from the 2016 Appropriation. And we have been with the party for a little over three hours and we have given explanation on every issue that there was, to our knowledge, no padding of the budget,” Enag said.

He said “the budget as assented to by Mr. President is the budget as passed by the National Assembly and that is the budget be​ing​ executed.

“But as at now the party is handling it as a domestic issue, and all of us are enjoined not to make public comment on the details of it because the matter is still under consideration.

“So that is what we will want to say for now, we will not want to go into the details of it so that we will not breach the ethics of the party, the directives of the party or pre-empt everything, any outcome by the party.”

Responding to the question whether he thinks Speaker Dogara was guilty of the allegation, he said: “I will want to say that we came here as persons who work as liaison officers on the budget and the party had questions for us to make clarifications and we have made those clarifications to the party.

“We would not want to draw any conclusion. Please let us not go too far and mentioning any office. Let it be that two of us have appeared before the party.”

Recall that former ​chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumini J​i​brin, had accused Speaker Yakubu Dogara, his deputy, Yusuf Lasun​,​ and two others of padding the 2016 Appropriation Bill with N40 billion, an allegation the Speaker has denied.