Still smarting from the heavy padding of the 2016 Appropriations Bill by the some unscrupulous elements in the Budget ministry, President Muhamamadu Buhari is said to have put in motion, the process of punishing those responsible for doctoring the document.

The President has reportedly instructed detectives to investigate the matter and identify the individuals, so as to mete out appropriate punishment to them, upon his return to Abuja.

Buhari is presently away on a trip to the Middle East, where he is visiting Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Vanguard reports that plain clothes detectives, in response to the president’s orders, have visited the Department of Budget and some ministries, departments and agencies to ascertain those responsible for the padding of the budget.

The report states that some of the officials responsible for the padding, are believed to be opposed to the zero-based budget system adopted by the President to cut costs and boost capital expenditure to 30 percent.

They are said to have instead, chosen the “envelope system”, which arbitrarily allocates a fixed but unrealistic sum to each unit, sometimes higher or lower than what is realistically required.

Consequently, for the past two days, the detectives are said to have been busy scouring through the initial documents used for the 2016 Budget and comparing them with the padded budget documents.

A top official in the Planning Ministry was quoted to have said: “For two days, the detectives have been working in the Budget Department but we do  not really know what exactly they picked out.”

“But the detectives did not molest any of the staff  of  the ministry. They went straight to look at the records and began to input data into their own computers”.

Kolapo Olapoju