The National Assembly today replied President Muhammadu Buhari after laying accusations on them over changes the lawmakers made in the 2018 budget while assenting to the 2018 Appropriation Bill.
Speaking while fielding questions from State House correspondents on Wednesday, Deputy Senate Majority Leader, Bala Na' allah, said that the National Assembly is not worried over the concerns raised by President Muhammmadu Buhari over changes it made in the 2018 budget.
TORI News had reported earlier that President Muhammadu Buhari said members of the national assembly added 6,403 projects of their own to the 2018 budget proposal sent to them, and also made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects he submitted for consideration.
While speaking after the president assented to the Appropriation Bill, Na'Allah said if they had allowed the budget to go the way the president presented it to then they would have incurred the wrath of those who elected them.
Asked if the National Assembly was worried about the concerns raised by the president, Na'Allah responded: "No, we are not worried. The job of parliamentarians is a very difficult one. The way the budget came, if we had allowed it to go that way, we would have been in trouble with those who elected us.
"You have to balance between the six-geo political zones. It is the balancing efforts by the National Assembly that led to those observations and happily enough."
According to DailyTrust, the deputy senate leader assured that the National Assembly would as quickly as possible deal with a supplementary budget which Buhari promised to send, adding that since the president had not sent the supplementary budget, he could not give a timeline on what it would be treated.
He said; "Normally, supplementary budgets doesn’t last long, it will be built on what has already been done by the National Assembly. I think that is the most important issue."
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