Members of the All Progressives Congress in the House of Representatives on Tuesday stalled debate on the 2014 Appropriation Bill.
The development appeared to be the first phase of the lawmakers’ compliance with the directive of the national leadership of their party to “block” all Executive bills, particularly the budget.
The PUNCH had exclusively reported on Tuesday that the lawmakers were set for a stormy debate on the budget.
The leadership of the APC had, at a meeting with the members of the party in Abuja on Tuesday, restated its directive to them to ensure that the Appropriation bill was not passed.
The row in the House was however prevented from degenerating by the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, who continuously advised the angry lawmakers to exercise decorum.
Tuesday’s plenary progressed normally until Tambuwal asked the Majority Leader, Mrs. Mulikat Akande-Adeola, to lead the debate on the general principles of the N4.6tn budget.
She had hardly finished speaking when an APC member from Benue State, Mr. Emmanuel Jime, raised a point of order strictly on grounds of law.
Jime noted that the budget estimates, as presented before the House, breached Section 21 (I,II,III) of the Fiscal Responsibly Act, 2007.
According to him, the Act provides that the government corporations listed under Section 21 “shall not later than six months from the commencement of this Act, submit the estimates of expenditure for the next three years” to the National Assembly.
Jime, who is also a lawyer, added that the law required the Minister of Finance to “ cause” and attach the estimates of the corporations to the national budget presented to the National Assembly.
He named the listed corporations as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Ports Authority and “21 other agencies of government.”
The lawmaker argued that, having gone through the budget estimates, he found out that the estimates of the corporations were not attached as required by law.
Rather, he said the budget merely had “the summary and abridged versions” of the budgets of the corporations.
Jime added that, proceeding to debate the budget in view of what he considered to be a violation of the law, would not be in the interest of the country.
He told his colleagues that as legislators, they were called to uphold the provisions of the law at all times.
“The pattern of presenting this budget has breached our laws; the House should not allow itself to do the wrong thing because we want to satisfy the comfort of the moment”, Jime added.
At this point, some PDP members, who did not like his line of argument, started shouting at him to sit down.
“Point of order”, “point of order, Mr. Speaker”, Mr. Nedo Karibi from Bayelsa State, shouted. Several other PDP members joined him in shouting at Jime to sit down.
However, Tambuwal protected him by saying that in keeping with the rules of the House, a member already speaking on a point of order must be allowed to exhaust his remarks before another point of order could be taken.
Jime continued and cited the $10.8bn said to be missing from the account of the NNPC as reference.
He said that if the corporation attached its budget estimates to the budget, members would have noticed the missing money and pointed it out.
As Jime resumed his seat, Tambuwal called on the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Mr. John Enoh, to respond.
Enoh, a Peoples Democratic Party member from Cross River State, said, “I disagree with the indication that the budget is in breach of any law whatsoever.”
He recalled that the “struggle” to get the Executive to comply with the FRA had been on for years.
Enoh even praised the Executive, claiming that in the last three years, it(Executive) had improved by sending the abridged versions of the budgets of the NNPC, CBN and others to the National Assembly.
He said in the past, nothing was sent to the legislature, yet the successive budgets were passed.
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http://www.punchng.com/news/uproar-as-apc-reps-stall-2014-budget-debate/