Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has turned down the N3billion
assigned to him for zonal projects in the North-
east in his capacity as a principal officer of the
House, it was gathered yesterday.
This is coming just as the Speaker and President
Muhammadu Buhari have agreed to work
together to resolve the crisis arising from the
controversy over the 2016 budget.
It would be recalled that the House, had in an
executive session on Wednesday, delegated the
Speaker to meet with President Buhari to
identify areas of concern in the budget and find
a way of resolving it.
Dogara, it was learnt, met with President Buhari
who was represent by Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo that same Wednesday evening at the
presidential villa, Abuja, to address
controversial issues about the fiscal document.
A source close to the Speaker said that Dogara
had rejected the N3bn meant for his zone as
principal officer ab initio, saying that the money
should be used to finance other important
projects.
The source who preferred not to be named in
print also disclosed that the Speaker, at the
meeting with Osinbajo who represented
President Buhari gave the President assurance
that the lower chamber will work with the
Executive to resolve all grey areas in the budget
which was passed by the National Assembly and
transmitted to him for assent.
Our source also disclosed that Dogara told the
President that the N4 billion projects injected
into the budget by the Chairman of the
committee on Appropriation, Hon. Abdulmumini
Jibrin for his Kiru/Bebeji Constituency in Kano
state will be reallocated to other projects in the
budget.
The House of Representatives had come under
criticism for removing important projects such
as the Calabar-Lagos rail project from the
budget even though it maintains it was never
among the projects submitted by the President.
The lawmakers were accused to have left the
Kano/Lagos rail project untouched but also
reduced the amount set for the completion of
the Idu-Kaduna rail project which is said to have
reached an advanced stage of completion by
N8.7 billion.
Furthermore, the House was reported to have
either removed or reduced provisions made in
the areas of Agriculture and water resources
aimed at diversification and moved the funds to
provision of boreholes which had been provided
for elsewhere.
But clarifying on the issue, the spokesperson of
the House, Hon. Abdulaziz Namdas, at a briefing
on Wednesday said, “We are not saying the
Calabar-Lagos rail project is not good, we know
it is a viable project. Our area of concern is
what people are saying that it was in the
budget and we removed it. That project was not
among the projects submitted by Mr. President
to the National Assembly”.
Today.ng
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