The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, has said that there is no disparity in the 2024 budget.
The minister said this while addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
A lawmaker, Senator Abdul Ningi, representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District of Bauchi State, had said that the 2024 budget was padded by N3 trillion, adding that there were two versions of the budget.
Ningi was reported to have made the claim in a BBC Hausa Service interview during the weekend.
Contrary to Ningi’s claim, the minister said that President Bola Tinubu submitted submitted a budget of 25.2trn whereas, the National Assembly upgraded the budget to N28.7trn.
“Constitution necessitates that, the president submit budget proposal to the National Assembly. The national assembly had the last word in terms of appropriation. There can be no appropriation without addition, subtraction or agreement to the one presented. The national assembly deemed it fit to increase the budget from N25.5 trillion presented by the president to 28.7trn which is what the president is working with,” he said.
“There has been a long debate, and a former president went up to the Supreme Court to define the appropriation power of the executive and the National Assembly. Later, there was an out-of-court settlement. Until now, this issue has not been resolved.
“So, what is the power of the National Assembly as regards the budget? There is no Supreme Court judgement, and the choice of our democracy is that the National Assembly has the last word. Even when they pass an appropriation, that assent is refused, and after 30 days, it becomes law.
“Do they have the right to increase a budget line? I will say yes.”
He also mentioned that there is a misunderstanding regarding why budgets for agencies classified as statutory transfers do not have their budget line items disclosed.
“These are transfers for agencies that are created by the constitution or legislation. So, they have the right to draw up their own budget. They can be supervised by a committee, but it is not the federal government that appropriates for them; the most popular ones are the NJC, FCT, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, NEDC, NDDC, and others,” he said.
