- Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the fate of the 2018 budget lies in the hands of the National Assembly
- Osinbajo says the executive has done its part and was waiting on the federal lawmakers for passage of the bill
- The vice president speaking on the rifts between the executive and the legislature, said he is not so sure that the tensions are unknown
Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Friday, March 2, exonerated the executive from the delay in passage of the 2018 Appropriation Bill, adding that it had fulfilled its part by presenting the budget proposals to the National Assembly in the first week of November 2017, Daily Trust reports.
NAIJ.com gathered that the vice president in an interview with journalists in Lagos said since the appropriation bill was still in the National Assembly, there was very little the executive could do to control that.
He said the executive was waiting for the legislature to pass the budget.
READ ALSO: National Assembly to override President Buhari on Peace Corps Bill
The Vice Chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations, Sunny Ogbuoji last week, blamed ministers and heads of federal government agencies for delay in passage of the budget.
He said: “Most of the subcommittees have huge challenges with the MDAs because majority of them are not coming forward to interface with them. Some ministers will tell you they are travelling out of the country and because of them; the MDAs are not fully ready.”
Osinbajo said "We agreed that we will submit our proposal in good time, and we did that first week of November. The President did so. We fulfilled that part of the agreement. The budget is with the National Assembly. There is very little we can do to control that. That's the system that we have."
The vice president on the rifts between the executive and the legislature, said: "Well, I’m not so sure that the tensions are unknown. The democratic system anywhere as, for example, in the US where we borrow our bicameral legislature from, you find that despite the fact that the Republican Party controls major part of parliament, it still doesn't mean that bills are necessary going to go through.
"So, one must assume that the responsibility of the National Assembly is to scrutinize what the executive is doing and not just to be a rubber stamp. But I also agree with you entirely that it’s important for us, for the sake of our country, our economy and for the sake of many young people, who are relying on us to deliver. We ensured that we released our budget on time. I want to believe that the executive has done its part and we wait on the National Assembly.”
PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigeria’s #1 news app
According to an earlier report by NAIJ.com, the Nigerian Senate on Wednesday, February 28, threatened to pass the 2018 budget without submissions from recalcitrant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The Nation reports that this threat is followed the observation by the vice chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Sunny Ogbuoji.
It was learnt that the Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki asked Ogbuoji to tell the Senate the position of the 2018 Appropriation Bill whose implementation should have started on January 1st, 2018.
Has President Buhari truly taken Nigeria out of recession? on NAIJ.com TV.
Source: Naija.ng