The budget drama at the House of
Representatives continued on Monday as the Joint Committees on Telecommunications/ Information Communication Technologies again stopped the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, from defending his ministry’s budget proposal.
The House had last week turned the minister away on the grounds that his ministry’s budget proposal was different from President Muhammadu Buhari’s proposals.
The session with the minister was barely five minutes in progress when one of the co-chairmen, Mr. Saheed Fijabi, asked that the meeting should be called off.
Fijabi said, “We are dealing with two budgets here. What the minister is presenting is different from what Mr. President gave us.
“We have to agree on whether to accept his own or we stop him and take another date.”
His colleagues, led by Mr. Mohammed Onawo, backed Fijabi.
“Onawo said, “The power of appropriation lies with the legislature and we are bound by law to do what is right.
“From the figures available to us, we have to work in the interest of the nation. We have to do the needful.”
The session ended abruptly as Shittu was directed to take the budget back and re-work it.
Shittu earlier gave the highlights of the budget as N5bn (capital projects); N600m (personnel cost); and N240m (overhead cost).
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation said on Monday that the 2016 budget would be passed “not later than second week of March” by the National Assembly. The Chairman of the committee, Mr.
Abdulmumin Jibrin, made the disclosure in Abuja as the standing committees of the House began to submit their reports to the Appropriation Committee for collation.
The News observes that the House will have three sitting days in the second week of March — March 8, March 9 and March 10.
This implies that the budget should be passed latest on March 10.
Jibrin said the House procedure was that each standing committee, after concluding the defence of budget proposals by agencies under their supervision, would submit a report to theCommittee on Appropriation.
He added that the Committee on Appropriation was the clearing house for all recommendations on any amendments made to the proposals of the agencies.
Jibrin spoke more, “We are taking the reports from the committees beginning from today (Monday). We want to pass the budget not later than second week of March.
“We will take the reports of the standing committees up to Friday and take another few days to clean up the budget.”
Jibrin added that after compiling the reports of the committees, the Committee on Appropriation would invite the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, to clarify “whenever it is necessary to do so.”
The first committee to lay its report on Monday was the Committee on Federal Road Safety Corps.
The committee is headed by Mr. Abubakar Yinusa.
The committee recommended the slashing of the agency’s Internet access charge from N18m to N10m.
It also reduced the amount of money proposed for maintenance of vehicles from N79m to N59m.
The proposal of N122m for fuelling of vehicleswas reduced to N50m, leaving the sub-head with N72m.
The committee moved the funds to other sub-heads such as international training andpublicity.
The committee recommended N40m for publicity on the grounds that the FRSC needed more funds to sensitise drivers to safe driving and how motorists could apply the new technologies deployed by the corps.
