2018 budget: Reps revolt over Buhari’s requests to address joint session of NASS

Request by President Muhammadu Buhari to address a joint session of the National Assembly sparked commotion in the House of Representatives, yesterday.
The president had formally written to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to inform them of his readiness to present the 2018 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly.
At the Senate, Saraki read the letter at the close of yesterday’s legislative business. According to the letter, Buhari is expected to make the presentation by 2pm next Tuesday.
But at the House of Representatives, a mild drama played out as members sharply reacted to the request.
No sooner had Speaker Dogara announced that there was a letter from the president on the 2018 budget than the lawmakers started shouting “no” to show their displeasure with the request for a joint session.
Dogara had stressed, in his intervention,  that  lawmakers cannot stop the president from addressing the joint session of the House and the Senate.
“I wish we have the constitutional right to say no. But unfortunately, we don’t have it…This House is the custodian of the constitution. The president has the right…,”  Dogara said.
Buhari, had, in October, presented the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to both chambers.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, had said, last July that the 2018 budget would be presented to the National Assembly before the end of October.
According to him then, “the MTEF outlines the Federal Government’s fiscal policies and our macroeconomic projections for the next three years from 2018 to 2020 provides the broad framework for the 2018 budget. We are committed to delivering the 2018 budget to the National Assembly by the beginning of October.”   The Federal Executive Council had approved the proposed budget at its meeting held last Thursday.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader, Ahmad Lawan, said that January-December budget calendar was not cast in stone, adding that what was important was for the budget of any given year to be implemented to the latter.
Lawan, who was in the Presidential Villa with Senator Sola Adeyeye to meet with President Buhari, on what he called “private visit,” said to return to the January-December calendar would depend on the collaboration between the executive and the legislature.
As a fallout of signing of the 2017 budget into law by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, while acting as the president, the Executive and the Legislature had agreed to return the Federal Government to a January–December budget calendar.
|Sun