Senate Committed To Speedy Passage Of 2016 Appropriation Bill – Spokesman

The Senate Committee Chairman on Media and Public Affairs, Mr Aliyu Abdullahi, on Tuesday said the upper legislative chamber is committed to ensuring the speedy passage of the 2016 Appropriation Bill.

Speaking on Sunrise daily, the Senator said “we have set the end of February as an end time for this exercise to end”.

He confirmed that a communication has been sent to the National Assembly by the President and insisted that by protocol, he will not be able to comment on that till the content is read on the floor of the House.

He however noted that “from tomorrow (Wednesday, January 20, 2015), having understood what the content of the letter is, we will be able to come out with a clear agenda.

“Ab initio, what we said is we want to end all processes on our own end before February and we have not lost time yet. Ordinarily, we should have started the debate today, but based on what the content of Mr President’s letter, we will be able to take it up from there”, he said.

He further re-iterated the resolve of the Senate to ensure that Nigerians have their budget in good time, insisting that “we are still committed that”.

He added that the communication from President Buhari was because of the existence of two budgets; one submitted by the President and the other, allegedly reproduced and distributed by the President’s aide on National Assembly Matters, Sen. Ita Enang.

The Niger-born politician maintained that after the Senate returned from recess, it was “understood that the document submitted to the National Assembly had some differences” with the one submitted by President Buhari.

Sen. Enang, had said President Muhammadu Buhari sent a communication to the National Assembly as regards the 2016 budget.

Speaking on phone to Channels Television, Senator Enang said the content of the letter would be read at the resumption of plenary on Today (Tuesday, January 19) by the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

It is presumed that the letter may address the controversy which has plagued the 2016 budget, triggering reports that the budget is missing.