Emerging report exclusively reaching Post-Nigeria, indicates that Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, may return the already passed 2017 budget back to the National Assembly, what Presidential sources have described as a ‘fraudulent document’.
Recall, that the 2017 Appropriation Bill was passed on Thursday, May 11, by the National Assembly, and has been transmitted to Osinbajo for assent, before it can become a legal document.
Findings by Post-Nigeria, as revealed by a source close to the Presidency, disclosed that the Acting President is withholding his assent, over findings that the National Assembly may have overstepped its bounds, by jerking up the budget.
Beyond that, the National Assembly is believed to have significantly increased projects meant to benefit its members, especially its principal officers.
The National Assembly hijacked its 2017 budgetary allocation from N115 billion to N125 billion, while other sectoral allocations were also reportedly altered by the National Assembly.
Post-Nigeria gathered that, Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, have met at least twice with the Acting President, in company of two Ministers, to address the grey areas.
“If both parties are unable to address the issues, the document like in 2016, may be returned to the National Assembly for further legislative action’’, a source told our Correspondent.
A breakdown of the budget showed that the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, received the lion’s share of N586,535,786,168, followed by the Federal Ministry of Transport with N256,519,103,581, the Federal Ministry of Education got N455,407,788,565, and the Federal Ministry of Health, received N308,464,276,248.
A further breakdown shows an allocation of N1,663,885, 430, 449 for debt servicing, and N177,460,296,707 as sinking fund to retire maturing loans, making a total of N1,841,345,727,206 for debt management.
Under the Service Wide Vote and Pensions, the Federal Government allocated N2, 599,702,192 for the benefits of retired Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation; this is while 4 billion was allocated for Treasury Single Account operations.
N2.5 billion was allocated to implement the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
Allocation for the controversial zonal intervention projects for Lawmakers, better known as constituency projects, remained unchanged from 2016 at N100 billion. This is as the North-East intervention fund stayed at 45 billion.
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