Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has replied President Muhammadu Buhari’s criticism over the delay in passing the 2019 Appropriation Act.
Mr Buhari had said on Monday night in a recorded interview broadcast on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) that he rated Mr Dogara and Senate President, Bukola Saraki, low on patriotism for delay in passing the 2019 Appropriation Act.
In a statement on Tuesday, Dogara said that since Buhari assumed office, he “has been unable to present budget on time.”
Dogara said: “His first budget was the 2016 budget, which was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the fiscal year.
“The minimum time the National Assembly requires to pass budget is three months. But he presented it just nine days to 2016’ and that ‘what Nigerians didn’t know and the President won’t say is that the Executive through the various ministries continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget.”
The speaker recalled the President’s delay of six months in appointing ministers. “This is was his greatest undoing and was principally responsible for plunging Nigeria into recession…,” he said.
Dogara also blamed Buhari for not briefing National Assembly leadership on the details of the budget and key projects he would want to execute even before budget presentation.
This, he said, was the tradition of “three Presidents before Buhari, from 1999 -2015, Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan.”
