House
of Representatives said on Monday that the executive arm of government
was bent on blackmailing the National Assembly over the 2013 budget by
raising “non-issues” daily.
It also observed that rather than
advising President Goodluck Jonathan to sign the 2013 Appropriation Bill
into law, his advisers were keen on blackmailing the legislature.
The National Assembly sent the details of the N4.9trillion budget to Jonathan on January 14.
The House picked holes in the claim on
Sunday by the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Dr. Nwanze
Okidegbe, who said that government might have challenges paying salaries
of workers this year due to a slash in personnel proposals by the
National Assembly.
Jonathan originally proposed a recurrent budget of N2.4tn and a capital component of N1.5tn.
However, the legislature jacked up the
capital budget to N1.6tn, slashing about N100bn from the recurrent vote.
It later passed N2.3tn as recurrent expenditure.
Reacting to Okidegbe’s comments on
Monday, House Deputy Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, said that a growing trend was
for everyone to attack the National Assembly at the slightest
opportunity.
He expressed surprise that the same Presidency that just announced to the nation that it uncovered 45,000 ghost workers on the payroll of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, was opposing a cut in recurrent spending.
Ogor noted,”This to us is blackmail. It will not help the nation.
“You said you uncovered 45,000 ghost workers, now you are complaining that we didn’t leave the recurrent budget the way it came.
“Are we still expected to budget for the ghost workers? Doesn’t this explain why personnel cost should be affected in the budget?
“The issue of ghost workers must be tackled seriously if we truly want this country to progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment