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..say there’s an instruction from above not to use details
By Emman Ovuakporie
From all indications, the 2020 Budget may be passed without details.
TNG decided to task lawmakers on whether the budget can be passed without necessarily using details as stipulated by law.
Their reaction was that there’s is an alleged directive from above to ignore the details as they have started defending the 2020 budget even before the details came on Tuesday.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had on October 9 submitted a budget that was largely described as a dummy.
One of the Lawmakers that spoke to TNG under the condition of anonymity said “we have it on good authority that there is an instruction from above that the details of the 2020 budget should not be touched rather the headings should be used to pass it.
“Immediately the president submitted the dummy budget, the House of Representatives suspended plenary and started budget defense without seeing copies of the details of the 2020 budget”
“So in the last one week, MDAs have been coming to defend their budget without details.
Another Lawmaker from the South-East geo-political zone of Nigeria told TNG that “we have been going to listen to the MDAs who have been making presentations without details and we have been told that the details have been sent from the ministry of finance since on Tuesday and up till now none of us received the details’
“This will be the first time that we may have to pass a budget without using the details which is the guidelines and distributive ingredient used in preparing the budget.
A lawmaker from the North Central of Nigeria also spoke in the same vein condemning the alleged instruction to be out of place.
He said, “it’s unfortunate that we have started to jettison our roles by shying away from the truth.
“It’s virtually impossible to pass the appropriation Bill without the details but we are watching, because this is the real budget padding as nothing will be added or removed because the N100billion intervention fund must scale through.