The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has expressed deep concern over the recourse of the National Assembly spokespersons to name calling over his observations on the 2017 budget.

In a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr Hakeem Bello, the minister said he was worried that the National Assembly spokespersons failed to address the fundamental points about development, hindering whimsical cuts in the allocations to several vital projects under the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as well as other ministries.

Fashola had, in a recent interview, while acknowledging that legislators could contribute to budget making, disagreed with the practice where the legislative arm of government unilaterally alters the budget after putting members of the executive through budget defence sessions and committee hearings to the extent that some of the projects proposed would have become materially altered.

While acknowledging the need for legislative input from the representatives of the people to bring forward their developmental aspirations before and during the budget production process, the minister had observed that it amounted to a waste of tax payers money and an unnecessary distortion of orderly planning and development for all sections of the country, for lawmakers to unilaterally insert items not under the Exclusive or Concurrent lists of the Constitution like boreholes and streetlights after putting Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAS, through the process of budget defence.

Specifically with regards to the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Fashola listed the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Bodo-Bonny road, the Kano-Maiduguri road, the Second Niger Bridge and the long drawn Mambilla Hydropower Project among others, as those that the National Assembly materially altered the allocations in favour of scores of boreholes and Primary Health Care Centres which were never discussed during the Ministerial Budget Defence before Parliament.

The Senate had recently accused the Works Minister of spreading falsehood on the 2017 Budget with regards to projects under his ministry.