The two chambers of the National Assembly on Wednesday reacted to the concerns raised by President Muhammadu Buhari on the alterations made on the 2018 Appropriation Act, saying the federal lawmakers did what they were supposed to do.
Punch reports that the Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah; and the Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, stated this in separate interviews with State House correspondents after joining Buhari during the signing of the budget at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, were absent at the brief ceremony.
Na’Allah said the lawmakers were not worried about the concerns raised by the President because their (lawmakers) job was a difficult one.
He said if they had allowed the budget to scale through the way Buhari submitted it to them, they would have been in trouble with those who elected them.
He said, “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, he himself has said he is coming with a supplementary budget which will be dealt with as quickly as possible. I assure you about that one.”
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