The Presidency has said it will not act on the controversy raging in the House of Representatives over alleged unapproved additions to the national budget until it is referred to it.
Constituency projects worth over N42 billion were inserted in the budget at committee level well after the House had passed the budget.
The passage of the 2016 budget itself was delayed for nearly three months when President Muhammadu Buhari withheld assent over illegal additions to his Appropriation Bill.
The House is now engulfed in deep crisis since a dismissed former appropriation committee chairman revealed the budget infractions recently.
Representatives are currently on long vacation but many have started campaigning for a change in leadership.
When Daily Trust sought the reaction of the government on this Presidential Spokesman, Femi Adesina, told our correspondent on phone that it was not a presidency matter at the moment.
Adesina said the alleged padding of the budget was a matter within the National Assembly.
He said when the matter was sorted out in the House of Representatives and referred to the executive, the Presidency would act on it.
“It is a National Assembly matter, especially the House of Representatives. When it is sorted out there and referred to the Presidency that is when the Presidency can do anything about it.
“There is the principle of separation of power,” the presidential spokesman said.
Meanwhile fresh information has emerged that the same infractions had taken place in the Senate.
A Senator told Daily Trust last night that the Senate was also involved in the padding of the 2016 budget.
“National Assembly is one, the Senate is not left out in the padding of the 2016 budget. As you know, the budget was harmonised by the Appropriation committees of both Chambers, “he said in a phone interview.
A lawmaker familiar with the matter told Daily Trust that both appropriation committees of the House of Reps and the Senate colluded and inserted similar projects in the budget.
The lawmaker said there was no way a project would scale through in the budget if the two chambers did not agree on same, adding that the leaders of the Senate were guilty of the same allegations levelled against Dogara and other leaders of the House.
“Every budget item has to be agreed upon by the two chambers. All the things buried by the House leaders were also buried by the Senate. So, they both dug the same holes for those things to be buried in.
“As a matter of fact, the two appropriation committees worked together throughout the budget period before they reported back to the respective chambers for approval.
“Invariably what you have in the House is what you have in the Senate, but that of the Senate may even be worse.
“A minister told me that ... they inserted an intervention project of N6 billion in his ministry, but when he told them one of the agencies under his ministry had a similar project, they opened up and said the project was meant for the them.
“You can remember what Ogbeh said after the budget defence. He said he saw some strange insertions in his ministry’s budget. That was done in connivance with the two appropriation committees,” the lawmaker said.
When contacted, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume said there was nothing like budget padding, arguing that they only discharged their constitutional responsibility.
“There is nothing like budget padding and now we don’t have budget, what we have now is Appropriation Act. The 2016 budget is now a law.
“Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution empowers the National Assembly to process the budget by adding, subtracting or even removing projects. So, the budget is now a law, can you say the Law has been padded?”
He blamed the media for the budget padding controversy.
The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami has said that no person will be spared if indicted in the budget padding scandal rocking the House of Representatives.
He said the report of the police investigation would soon be ready.
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