Dogara has said the controversy surrounding
the 2016 budget will be solved soon
– Dogara said National Assembly is well
within its powers to make amendments to
the budget before passing the 2016 budget
Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu
Dogara
The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara, has
said the National Assembly and the
Executive are likely to resolve issues
surrounding the 2016 budget very soon.
Dogara, who made this known when he
received a delegation of All Progressives
Congress elders and stakeholders from
Kwande/Oshongo federal constituency of
Benue State in the National Assembly, also
stated that the Executive and the Parliament
will not have any fight over their differences
arising from the 2016 budget as passed by
the National Assembly.
He stated: “We know that our people cannot
wait forever for the budget and as a
responsible government, we cannot afford to
go to sleep on this. As we speak to you, I
know that the Executive has sent observations
on the budget, areas they termed “grey areas”.
We’ve taken delivery of that document, we are
looking into it in collaboration with the Senate,
and we have arrived at a decision which I will
not announce here because it is for the ears
of Mr. President only.”
“In the overall national interest, we know that
we have to find a solution and sooner than
later, I believe that as leaders, having put on
our thinking caps, we should be able to come
up with a solution that will address this
problem.”
A statement signed by the Speaker’s
spokesman Mr Turaki Hassan, quoted him
as saying that the National Assembly is well
within its powers to make amendments to
the budget before passing it because the
role of the Executive stops at providing
estimates to the legislature which now goes
further to prepare it into an appropriation
law.
Dogara explained, “the truth is that even
though it is the responsibility of the
parliament, constitutionally speaking, to
prepare the budget, because I haven’t seen
any region anywhere in the world where the
executive does that, the constitution
recognizes that the executive will prepare the
estimates and revenues and present it before
parliament and then the parliament, in exercise
of its duties, will make appropriation in a
document called budget. Budget is always a
law, it is not a policy statement and there is
no government arm, no institution of
government that can make laws except the
National Assembly. We have exercised that
constitutional right and privilege which is
exclusively reserved for the National Assembly
using the document that is before the
President and as we all know, a law requires
the assent of the president; that is one of the
instrumentalities of checks and balances that
democracy guarantees and if it is not assented
to after some time, then the parliament can
summon the courage to say they are
overriding the veto powers of the president or
say the bill will have to commence de novo.
“But in this situation we are not there, even
though there are discussions and people
instigating a fight. We know that as leaders,
our responsibility is not to fight. It is one
government and this government will take the
active collaboration of the Judiciary,
Legislature and the Executive to be able to
deliver on the mandate. We cannot form an
opposition within the same government. The
Executive cannot constitute itself into an
opposition within the system in the same
government; neither can the Parliament, even
though it is a bipartisan one.”
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