A House of Representatives panel
on Tuesday rejected the 2017 budget records of the Ministry of Communications.
Members of the Committee on
Telecommunications headed by Saheed Fijabi (APC, Oyo) frowned at the
discrepancies uncovered in documents presented.
They lamented that the ministry
repeated the sum of about N200million in the 2018 budget proposal as judgement
debt when the same amount was budgeted for last year.
The lawmakers said based on the
records from the ministry, about N192m was paid out of the amount but that the
same thing was proposed again.
The committee turned down the
2018 budget defence and asked the Minister, Adebayo Shittu, to clean up the
documents and return at a later date.
Fijabi told the minister that:
“It appears you’re not prepared for this budget defence.
“This is the third attempt at our
budget defence, and it has always happened the same way.
“There is no reason to continue
this defence. We’ll give you few more days to go an put things in order.
“Until we get through with the
2017 budget details, we will not touch the 2018 proposal”, Daily Trust quoted
him as saying.
Responding, Shittu said the
bureaucrats in the ministry ought to have done due diligence in preparing the
documents.
He promised to ensure that the
documents were properly checked before his next appearance.
It is unclear whether Fijabi and
Shittu are not on good terms.
Both men are from Oyo state and
chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Shittu, has been vocal lately,
campaigning for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
On Monday, he lambasted former
president Olusegun Obasanjo over his statement on Buhari.
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