Nigeria: Senate Accuses Presidency of Floating Fake Budget

By Alifa Daniel, Mohammed Abubakar, Azimazi Momoh Jimoh and Wole Oyeba

Abuja, Lagos — With an allegation by the Senate that the Presidency circulated fake copies of the 2016 budget, the controversy over the "missing" fiscal plan took a turn for the worse yesterday.

According to the Senate, the fake copies, which were brought by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Solomon Ita Enang, were completely different from the copy of the N6.08 trillion 2016 budget proposal presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22, 2015.

The President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who made the allegation at the executive session, declared that the upper legislative chamber would treat only the original copy of the budget proposal as presented ‎by Buhari last Month.

When approached to respond to the accusation, Enang simply declined comments. He was asked to disclose the interest his efforts to serve the Senate with fake versions of the budget proposal were meant to serve.

However, the Presidency has said it is not prepared to engage the National Assembly in a war of words over the 2016 budget. It said it would rather build on the existing cordial relationship between the two arms of government.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said the executive would not do anything that would distract the lawmakers from working on the budget. His words: "We are happy that they are ready to get on with the budget. We don't want anything that will distract them from their work. The present level of relationship between the Executive and the Legislature is too precious to be expended on issues that are not compelling."