President Muhammadu Buhari’s letter addressed to the Senate President Bukola Saraki on Tuesday contains a serious error.
The letter, personally signed by Buhari, claimed that the 2016 budget proposal was submitted on 22 December, 2016 instead of 22 December, 2015.
The letter reads:
“It will be recalled that on Tuesday, 22 December, 2016, I presented my 2016 budget proposals to the joint sitting of the national assembly. I submitted a draft bill accompanied by a schedule of details.
“At the time of submission, we indicated that because the details had just been produced, we would have had to check to ensure that there were no errors in the detailed breakdown contained in the schedule.
“That has since been completed and I understand that the corrections have been submitted.
“The national assembly would therefore have the details as submitted on the 22nd and a copy containing the corrections submitted last week. It appears that this has led to some confusion.
“In this regard, please find attached the corrected version. This is the version the national assembly should work with as my 2016 budget estimates. The draft bill remains the same and there are no changes in any of the figures.”
President Muhammadu Buhari wrote to the National Assembly to formally request the withdrawal of the 2016 Appropriation Bill he had presented to a joint session of the federal legislature on December 22 for adjustment. The president’s letter was addressed to Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara.
The formal request followed controversy over the alleged secret extraction and doctoring of the original budget document. The controversy over the budget had raged all through last week, as the National Assembly resumed after a recess and the legislators prepared to begin deliberation on the budget.
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