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Tag: Budget padding

  • How to check budget padding – Omoworare

    How to check budget padding – Omoworare

    The Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Mr. Babajide Omoworare said yesterday that the solution to the culture of budget padding in the country lies in the setting up of a National Assembly Budget and Research Office.

    The office, according to him, will enhance the budget scrutiny capacity of the National Assembly and also inject sanity, accountability and transparency into the nation’s appropriation system.

    Omoworare speaking on Rhythm FM, Abuja said budget padding has always been used by budget drafters to steal public funds.

    “After spending about five years now in the Senate, I make bold to say there is no budget that has come to us that has not been padded,” he said.

    But he was glad that the Buhari Administration was able to see through the antics of those who prepared this year’s budget.

    “How do you explain an embarrassing situation where the Minister of Health, Professor  Isaac Adewole found a different budget from the one approved by his office during budget defence or a discovery of about N200billion budget head duplications all due to sharp practices?” he asked. He denied accusation that members of the National Assembly were not doing anything about the situation until now.

    Omoworare said he has always been a voice against this practice but since he was initially in the opposition, the majority always prevailed.

    “I spoke against the bogus N7 billion Abuja City Gate, the First Lady Mission House and other monumental wastes injected into previous budgets,” he claimed.

    “To have a holistic solution to this infidelity, I have proposed a National Assembly Budget and Research Office bill to enhance budget scrutiny capacity of the National Assembly, inject sanity, accountability and transparency into our appropriation system. When it is passed, it will give legal teeth to our budget scrutiny and research mechanism at the National Assembly”.

    He added that the bill has passed a second reading with overwhelming acceptance from senators, “Constitutionally and traditionally budget should be a document of the legislature with liberty to tinker with and effect necessary adjustments, but endemic corruption in our system has always impeded this role of the lawmakers.”

  • 2016 Budget padding: Buhari orders probe

    2016 Budget padding: Buhari orders probe

    An embarrassed President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a  probe of  the alleged massive padding of the 2016 Budget proposals  by yet to be identified officials, Premium Times reported yesterday.

    National Assembly members first blew the whistle on the strange figures and consequently suspended deliberation on the budget  until further notice.

    Many Nigerians have expressed concern over the smuggling  of  unauthorised figures into the budget proposals.

    The president is said to have directed that all identified   discrepancies, errors and ambiguities be expunged  immediately.

    Officials of the  Ministries of Finance and Budget/National Planning  are expected to effect the necessary corrections.

    A Presidency official blamed most of the errors in the budget on “over-ambitious civil servants” in the budget office who handled the preparation of the document prior to the appointment of ministers.

    He said that by the time the ministers were eventually appointed, they had no sufficient time to properly scrutinize the budget for errors, in view of the tight deadline each of the ministries got before the final presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly on December 22, 2015.

    Premium Times quoted a Presidency official as saying  that the probe will cover “all the allegations and issues, particularly on padding, raised by the National Assembly on various ministries, departments and agencies of government.”

    The  panel,according to him, will also “critically look into the budget item-by-item, incident-by-incident, with particular attention to the reactions from the National Assembly, ministries, media, civil society groups or indeed anybody that raised concerns regarding the padding of the budget.

    “All corrections would be made to ensure that the budget is passed as soon as possible. I assure you government is working cautiously on the corrections with the intention of correcting any error or malfeasance spotted in the 2016 Appropriation Bill. If there is any error whatsoever, it is being sorted out straight away.”

    Budget Minister  Uda Udo Udoma was at the Presidential Villa yesterday apparently in connection with the Budget issue.

    He claimed ignorance of any probe of the budget padding  by the Presidency.

    But speaking  during the signing of an agreement with the Japanese Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. Sadanobu Kusaoke for an $11 million ‘Project for Emergency Improvement of Electricity Supply Facilities in Abuja’ on Thursday, Senator Udoma  said: “Let me just say that it is normal in a budget process – proposals are presented, sometimes issues are found and they are sorted out; so, it’s fairly routine.

    “It shouldn’t be overplayed; these are routine things which are resolved as they come up and so, it is not an issue.

    “Besides, we are discussing amicably with the National Assembly,” Udoma stated while responding to a reporter’s question.

    Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Mallam Garba Shehu, declined yesterday to comment on the probe of the fraudulent padding of the