The Presidency on Sunday said the blame for the delay in passing the budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2019 general election is on Senate President Bukola Saraki, who, according to it, caused the delay of the 2018 Appropriation Bill.
Senior Special Assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said this in a statement issued to respond to claim by the Senate President that.
Saraki, had while reacting to the claim of the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) that he was slowing down the approval of the budget request for the elections in a statement by Olu Onemola, his special assistant on new media, said the executive branch could have submitted INEC’s 2019 election budget at the time it submitted the 2018 appropriations proposal last year.
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“The executive had from January till June this year to submit the budget request. However, due to a perceived lack of foresight, display of usual tardiness or an attempt to ensure that due process would not be followed, this request was submitted only a few days before the statutory national assembly annual recess.”
But while denying the claim of the Senate President, Shehu said: “On the contrary, the Senate President should look into the mirror and what he will see is his own face. He is solely to be held responsible for deliberately driving the nation to this cliff edge as far as the preparations for next elections are concerned.
“It is not true that INEC submitted their draft budget to the Presidency in February. No, it came much later but even then, this is not the real issue.
“The fact that their proposals came well after the President had laid his budget for the year 2018 before the National Assembly meant that their own will be sent as supplementary budget. This was clearly stated to them by the Minister of Budget and National Planning.
“A supplementary budget cannot be submitted until the main budget is passed, and so the delay in passing the main budget was the reason for the delay. The National Assembly passed the 2018 budget seven months after the document was submitted to the National Assembly by President Buhari.
“Unless someone has forgotten, the budget was submitted to the National Assembly and it took the Saraki-led National Assembly seven months to release it. There is no way President Buhari could have submitted a supplementary budget while the main one was still pending. It is never done. Because Saraki did not return the main budget, we could not have submitted the supplementary one.
“After the long delays, the President was pained to sign the much distorted, butchered and debauched document. In giving his assent, President Buhari said that he was compelled to sign the budget so as not to keep the economy continuously on a standstill.
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“In his words: ‘When I submitted the 2018 Budget proposals to the National Assembly on 7th November 2017, I had hoped that the usual legislative review process would be quick, so as to move Nigeria towards a predictable January-December financial year.’
“It is also worthy of note that this is the first time in Nigeria’s history that a government would bring together the cost of an election in one budget, with each agency involved invited to defend their portion of the budget before the National Assembly.
“It is all part of the transparency that this government is known for. In the past, governments would approve INEC budgets and funding without a breakdown, often using ways and means to fund it. Not so under President Buhari.”
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