The Case Of The Missing Budget

Saraki, on Wednesday made the announcement during plenary.

On Tuesday, the Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, said that there was no truth to insinuations that the 2016 budget document is missing.

He said already, all senators have indicated the date they will make their own contribution on the budget. “I can assure that none of us (senators) is aware of the sectoral allocations contained in the budget proposal”. “The budget can not be missing”.

Honourable Jibrin said the rumour of missing budget may have been triggered by the delay in the production of more copies of the budget.

He accused the media of being the brains behind the scandal, which according to him, was unnecessary. “We assure Nigerians that our time table of completing work on the budget by February ending remains sacrosanct and we will work assiduously to achieve it”. Eyinnaya Abaribe, for the Senate to address the issue of the missing budget, which dominated the traditional and social media space since yesterday. However, there were still a few Nigerians who expressed doubt as to how Nigeria’s budget could be stolen.

At the open plenary yesterday citing Order 42 which deals with Matters of Urgent Public Importance, Abaribe noted that senators had been inundated with calls from their constituents about the whereabouts of the budget document.

However, members of the house were shocked when they discovered that there was no such item relating to the budget for deliberations.

In what was a show of shame to Nigeria’s Senate Assembly, reports yesterday claimed hundreds of pages of the 2016 Nigerian budget went missing.

It would be recalled, Buhari had on 22nd, December, 2015 presented the budget proposal to the joint session of the National Assembly.

The lower house’s copies of the 2016 budget are scheduled for distribution Wednesday.