President Buhari Mistakenly Submits Jonathan’s Budget to Senate; Senators React
The Nigerian Senate says investigations by its economic committee reveals that President Buhari has no plans to end recession.
The Senate made the startling remarks during reconsideration of Buhari’s Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), yesterday.
The lawmakers also added that the president’s economic team is in disarray.
The legislators described the MTEF/FSP as shallow and empty.
They cautioned that passing the hollow documents would have created room for another faulty 2017 national budget.
Recall that the Senate returned Buhari’s MTEF/FSP in an October 19 letter, signed by Senate Leader, Ali Ndume.
Speaking on the new documents yesterday, Chairman of the Committee on Defense, Senator Ahmad Lawan noted that “The benchmark is realistic.
But, I have my reservation about the production level.
“We need to bring in more efforts to reconcile the government and people of the Niger Delta.
“This, in my opinion, will be the only way through which the government can achieve the 2.2 barrels per day.
Senator Dino Melaye, who was more critical, urged his colleagues to reject the proposals.
Melaye said the President out rightly lied to the Senate and Nigerians in the documents.
According to him, the president literally copied previous documents and presented it to them.
For instance, the document said inflation rate was 4.6% while the CBN says it’s 18.3%.
We’re well aware that both percentages are higher.
By extrapolation, the only way President Buhari’s economic team came by the 4.6% was that they copied previous administrations.
To back this stand, Senator Emmanuel accused the President of outright lies.
He said: “Looking at some of the parameters, it is glaring that you cannot comprehend the truth behind these assumptions.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor said unemployment is high.
“The current inflation rate is 18.3%, but, this document is misleading us by saying that the inflation rate is 4.6%.
“I will not suggest that this document be returned, but, we must admit it was poorly prepared.”
