BREAKING: Nigeria' s 2016 Budget Has Been Stolen! !!!!

The hard and soft copies of the 2016 budget documents President Muhammadu Buhari
handed over to the National Assembly on December 22, 2015 have been declared missing.

The Nigerian Senate was scheduled to commence deliberation on the proposed budget
Tuesday (today).
But Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, shocked lawmakers at a closed-door session, when he told
them the budget documents had been stolen, people familiar with the matter told PREMIUM
TIMES.
Mr. Ndume, our sources said, explained that deliberation on the budget could therefore not
begin until fresh copies of the documents were obtained from the presidency, the Ministry
of Finance or that of national planning.
The Chairman, Senate Committee of Appropriation, Danjuma Goje, was subsequently
mandated to lead a search for the documents and liaise with the presidency, the Senior
Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, and the national
planning ministry on the matter.
The Senators also resolved that the matter be kept under wraps, saying making it public
could embarrass the presidency, the National Assembly and the country.
Our sources said senators of the Peoples Democratic Party accused the presidency of being
behind the theft of the documents, an accusation rejected by their All Progressives Congress’
counterparts, who reportedly said it was too early to speculate.
Some lawmakers told PREMIUM TIMES they are suspicious that the presidency might have
colluded with the management of the National Assembly to quietly withdraw the documents
after detecting some discrepancies in them.
“Can you imagine this kind of national embarrassment?” one senator asked. “Documents
that were presented to us with fanfare have been stolen.”
The spokesperson for the senate, Aliyu Abdullahi,could not been reached for comments. So also is Mr. Goje, the
chairman of the appropriation committee.
President Muhammad Buhari had on December 22,2015 presented a N6.08 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2016 to a
joint session of the National Assembly.
It was the first time in three years a Nigerian President would personally present a budget before the National
Assembly.
Copies were however not distributed to lawmakers before they proceeded on Christmas and New Year holidays.
But weeks after the budget was presented to lawmakers, there were speculations that Mr. Buhari had withdrawn the
documents to enable him to correct some discrepancies, a claim the presidency and the national planning ministry
denied.
In the budget, capital expenditure takes N1.8 trillion, marking a significant over 300 per cent increment from the 2015
vote of N557 billion.
According to the estimate, N396billion is voted for education, being the largest sectoral allocation.
The health sector gets N296 billion while defence has N294 billion.

Premium Times