SENATE President, Dr Bukola Saraki, tacitly admitted, yesterday, that the 2016 budget was missing from the National Assembly, when he openly said a search committee set up by the Senate for the missing document would present its report today.
Saraki’s confirmation of the report came just as Vanguard gathered that the search committee quizzed aides of President Muhammadu Buhari in the National Assembly as well as staff of the offices of the clerks to the Senate and House of Representatives, yesterday.
Vanguard sources said those interrogated gave useful information to the committee which would be presented to the Senate in plenary today.
The Senate President, who had earlier at the beginning of Senate’s session, yesterday, announced to senators that copies of the 2016 budget document would be made available to them today, in readiness for general debate on it next Tuesday, eventually owned up on the missing document while responding to Senator Abaribe’s point of order.
Abaribe had, through Order 42(1) of the Senate standing rule, drawn the attention of the Red Chamber to media reports that the budget document was missing and called for immediate deliberation on it by pointedly asking the Senate President: “where is our budget?”
He said: “The matter that I refer to through this order, is what is in every newspaper today, everywhere in all the talk shows in the radio of a missing budget and therefore Mr. President, I want to bring to your attention and that of all my colleagues that yesterday ( Tuesday) in our closed-door session, this matter also came up and some of us who are worried, who have been inundated by messages from our constituents who are really worried about what their fate will be in 2016, are asking us, where is our budget.
“That is why Mr President, I think, it is definite and it is urgent that we look into this matter of missing budget now.”
Abaribe’s submission pushed Saraki to admit that the budget document was not in sight in the Senate, contrary to the earlier denial of the Senate that the document was missing.
Saraki did not only confirm that the issue was raised and discussed at the Senate closed-door session on Tuesday but also said a search team had been set up to look for the missing document.