Chairman
of the federal house of representatives committee on appropriation has
said the presidency is not telling Nigerians the truth about items on
the 2016 budget.
Over the wekend, there was a firestorm online and all over social
media over an alleged re-allocation of funds for Lagos-Calabar rail
project to Lagos-Kano rail project.
Chairman of the federal house of representatives committee on
appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has said that the presidency is not
telling Nigerians the truth about items on the 2016 budget.
In a series of messages on his Twitter page on
Sunday, Jibrin said that the executive did not make any provision for
the Lagos-Calabar rail project in the budget proposal it presented to
the national assembly.
He said;
"I actually find it shocking that even some national dailies
made the removal their headlines. A little research would would have
helped. Lagos-Calabar Railway line was never captured in the budget that
was sent by the executive. How then could it have been removed by NASS?
"All they, and those spreading the false information needed to
have done, is check the initial document sent by the executive.
Lagos-Calabar Rail was never included. How could NASS have removed what
was not there? But the nation is being misled.
"The NASS has always been on the receiving end of bad press.
This is being capitalised on in the conversations on budget 2016. This
is unfortunate as it is quite clear to all and sundry that budget 2016
and all its headaches and controversies didn’t emanate from NASS
"Take the budget of the ministry of transportation [that] was
overshot by N54bn. That is, by the time you add up the items on the
ministry’s budget. You’d still have a gap of N54bn. N54billion lying
there without being allocated. NASS has a responsibility and here it did
the right thing
"What NASS did with the N54bn; we added N39.7bn to the
Lagos-Kano Rail project. This will help complete the project once and
for all.
"We also allocated N10b of this sum to the airport’s navigation
and security apparatus. We often make so much noise about airport
security after major plane crashes. But we need not wait for crashes to
enhance safety at airports
"We allocated the balance to Baro Ports for its completion and equipping. Baro Port is strategic to our economic development.
"Much ado about vaccines that weren’t even there. The budget of
the ministry of health was the most controversial. The minister of
health came to deny the document that was presented to the NASS by the
executive for the second time. There is a lot more to be said about this
and they will be said in the coming days.
"I saw reports saying NASS allocated too much for rural
projects including rural roads, primary health care, empowerment
programmes. We also allocated funding for rural solar street lights,
vocational centres, cottage industries etc. On this one, there is no
going back.
"Nigeria isn’t just for urban dwellers & as representatives
of the people, ours is to ensure justice in the distribution of
national wealth. About 95% of the input of NASS, which would have given
life to the policy thrust of Mr President, were discarded by the
executive.
"Some of these inputs include special intervention for the
solid mineral sector. This is even imperative seeing the realities
around oil. Some of our other inputs include special intervention for
rural agriculture, payment of pension arrears. Rural community light
project. The rural community Light project to light up 100 communities
spread across the 774 local governments.
"We also had special programmes for women empowerment and the
payment of debt owed local contractors. We also suggested N100bn be
taken out of N500bn, set aside as special intervention fund.
"That N50billion be set aside as special bursary for students
of tertiary institutions and another N50bn for special training on
entrepreneurship for students of tertiary institutions pre-graduation.
These were our inputs.
"These are my preliminary submissions seeing as there have been
no official communication between the executive and the national
assembly.
"These points are being noted because of the reports in some of
today’s papers, who really would have done better with a little more
research. Not to mention the fact that the executive has not come out to
disown the false reports flying around.
"We will come up with a comprehensive position especially with
respect to our observation of the budget and what we did to make it
better.
"The crux of the matter as it is, is that while the NASS
believes in the bottom-up agenda for development – focus on rural areas
and communities, the executive seems to favour a top-down approach. But
this is not enough reason to mislead Nigerians on the role of NASS on
the budget.
"It is important to have a fact based conversation on these
issues instead of the obvious attempts by some to mislead the general
public."
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