Nigeria: Revealed - National Assembly Padded 2016 Budget With N481 Billion

By Soni Daniel, Kingsley Omonobi and Johnbosco Agbakwuru

Abuja — Despite strident denials by top officials of the National Assembly, it has been discovered that the legislators padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N481 billion.

Documents obtained by Vanguard showed that apart from padding the budget with the huge sum, forcing the Presidency to raise alarm over it, NASS also unilaterally jerked the votes meant for constituency projects from N60 billion to N100 billion.

But the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdul Jibrin, who was fired last week, had said the Speaker allowed 10 committee chairmen to insert projects worth N284 billion and washed his hands off the illegal action.

The House leadership, however, said Jubrin was fired for fixing the budget, a development he vehemently denied.

Vanguard found out from the document exclusively obtained from the National Assembly that the lawmakers ingeniously removed some key projects proposed by the executive or drastically reduced their costs and introduced many others not contemplated by the Presidency which prepared the budget.

Among the projects which votes were surreptitiously jerked up without the knowledge of the executive, were Nigerian railway modernization project: Lagos - Kano standard gauge rail line project, which cost was raised by N32.5 billion and the consultancy dredging and river training works (N609 million) under the Ministry of Transportation.

Others, according to the document, are the Code of Conduct Bureau which had N4.4billion added to its vote, provision of broadband Internet Service to National Assembly by Nigcomsat, N318 million, Training and Consultancy for Nigcomsat 2 Project, N3.5 billion etc, in the Ministry of Communications.

Most scandalous, according to the document, is the case of Ministry of Works, Power and Housing where 82 new projects, principally roads, with a total provision of about N50.63 billion, were inserted in the budget.

The Presidency, which reviewed the budget, said: "A large number of these projects are outside the mandate of the relevant Ministry (e.g. the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Works, Power & Housing); or statutorily outside the FGN's mandate (like intra-city and state road projects); or cannot be implemented as there are no designs or costings made for them.