The end to the blame game over the details of the 2016 budget between the National Assembly and the Executive, is at the moment, nowhere in sight.
A member of the House of Representatives Committee on Transport, Ehiozuwa Agbonnayima has declared that the Minister for Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi lied when he claimed that the N100 billion Lagos-Calabar rail project was in the budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The alleged removal of the Lagos-Calabar rail project has been the subject of controversy since the National Assembly submitted the reviewed version of the 2016 budget to the Presidency.
Agbonnayima, who is a member of the committee that worked on Amaechi’s budget called on the presidency to accept the blame for the errors in the budget and cease dragging the National Assembly into an unnecessary rift with cheap blackmails.
The lawmaker confidently declared that no provision was made for the said Lagos-Calabar rail project in the first and second budgets presented to the National Assembly.
“First and foremost, the N100 billion for the Lagos – Calabar rail project which the Minister of Transportation claimed was in the budget, was never in the budget presented by President Buhari to both chambers of the National Assembly when they had a joint session.”
“I can also tell you that when the budget was later brought back after the rumoured paddling, it was never in that second budget that was brought to the National Assembly.”
“Let it be on record, yes, that there was a time the Minister wrote a letter to the National Assembly, not even to the entire National Assembly but to the Committee on Transport which I belong to on the issue.”
Agbonnayima, who represents Ikpoba-Okha/Egor federal constituency of Edo State, further stated that lying against the National Assembly on the removal of the project from the national budget is an attempt to incite the citizens against the NASS.
“It was shocking to read on the pages of newspaper that N100 billion was removed from the 2016 budget. This is just another way of blackmailing the National Assembly. It is high time we stopped this blame game.”
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