President Muhammadu Buhari has slammed members of the National Assembly over alleged secret approval of budgets for agencies.
The President charged them to ensure that budgets for the agencies and parastatals follow due process.
He gave the appeal on Friday while presenting the N20.51 budget before the National Assembly.
The budget, which is going to be the last before the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was tagged ‘Budget of Fiscal Consolidation and Transition’.
Buhari warned that appropriation for GOEs in the 2023 budget must be returned to the executive after due approval by the relevant committees.
“I would like to implore the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure that the budget I lay here today, which includes those of the GOEs, be returned to the Presidency when passed.
“The current practice where some committees of the National Assembly purport to pass budgets for GOEs, which are at variance with the budgets sanctioned by me, and communicate such directly to the MDAs is against the rules and needs to stop,” Buhari said.
The president had stated the inclusion of the new provisions totaling N36.59 billion for NASS’s projects in the Service-Wide Vote in the last budget negated the principles of separation of powers and financial autonomy of the different arms of government.
He disclosed that the provisions made for about 10,733 projects were reduced, while 6,576 new projects were introduced into the budget by the National Assembly.
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