Apologize and Resign now, Senate tells Amaechi

Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi
As the controversy over the true state of the
Nigerian budget raged on Monday, the Nigerian
Senate asked Minister of Transport, Rotimi
Amaechi to apologise for stirring one of the
issues which is budget padding, urging him, to
then

resign.
Part of the controversy that tended to create a
crisis of confidence between the executive and
the legislature was the alleged omission of a
vote for Lagos-Calabar rail project.
While the Senate and the House of
Representatives insisted that the project was not
in the budget presented by President
Muhammadu Buhari last December, a
clarification was however made by Senator
Gbenga Ashafa, who heads the Senate
Committee on Land and transportation, that the
item was presented to the committee by
Amaechi.
But the Appropriation Committees of the
National Assembly appeared not to recognise
this backdoor approach by Amaechi and insisted
they only recognised the budget submitted by
President Buhari, including the amended version
sent after errors and paddings were detected in
the first budget.
“We hereby demand from Mr Amaechi a publicly
tendered apology if he is not able to show
evidence that the Lagos-Calabar road project
was included in the budget. Otherwise, he should
resign forthwith”, said Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi,
Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and
Public Affairs.
“Finally, by the provision of Section 81 (4) (a)
and (b) of the Constitution, the President is
allowed to sign the budget and kick-start the
implementation of the other areas that constitute
over 90 percent of the budget’’.
It said that the president should sign the budget
and begin implementation of areas “where there
is agreement between both arms, even as we
engage ourselves to resolve the contentious
areas, if there were any.
“ We therefore maintain that even these
contrived discrepancies are not sufficient excuse
not to sign the budget into law.
“We therefore urge the President to sign the
2016 budget without further delay.
“For every additional day that the president
withholds his assent from the bill, the hardship in
the land, which is already becoming intolerable
for the masses of our people, gets even more
complicated.
“Certainly, as primary representatives of the
people, we shall not vacate our responsibility
and watch the people continue to suffer unduly’’.
The Senate urged the Presidency to tell
Nigerians the true state of the 2016 Budget.
Sen. Abdullahi said “the National Assembly had
bent backwards to produce a coherent document
out of the excessively flawed and chaotic
versions of the budget proposal submitted to it.
“While executive is mandated to prepare and lay
before the National Assembly a proposed budget
detailing projects to be executed, it should be
made clear that the responsibility and power of
appropriation lies with National Assembly.
“If the presidency expects us to return the
budget proposal to them without any
adjustments, then some people must be living in
a different era and probably have not come to
terms with democracy.
“We make bold to say, however, that the said
Lagos-Calabar rail project was not included in
the budget proposal presented to the National
Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“And, we challenge anyone who has any
evidence to the contrary to present such to
Nigerians,’’ it said.
According to the senate, the National Assembly
has suffered all manners of falsehood, deliberate
distortion of facts, and outright blackmail,
deliberately aimed at poisoning the minds of the
people against the institution of the National
Assembly.
“We have endured this with equanimity
(calmness) in the overall interest of Nigerians
even when the original submission was
surreptitiously swapped.
“We ended up having two versions of the budget
which was almost incomprehensible and heavily
padded in a manner that betrays lack of
coordination and gross incompetence.
“We refused to play to the gallery and instead
helped the Executive to manage the hugely
embarrassing situation it has brought upon itself,
but enough is enough.
“This latest antic of this particular Minister of
Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is reckless,
uncalled for and dangerously divisive.
“Apart from setting the people of the southern
part of the country against their northern
compatriots, it potentially sets the people against
their lawmakers from the concerned
constituencies and sets the lawmakers against
themselves,’’ the senate said.
The statement added that “this manner of
reprehensible mischief has no place in a
democracy.
source: pm news