House or Reps appropriation committee chairman sacked over padding of budget debacle

HOUSE of Representatives speaker Hon Yakubu Dogara has relieved the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin of his position in response to the recent crisis which resulted in the 2016 budget being padded.

 

Earlier this year, the House was left embarrassed after the budget was passed on to it for deliberation but by the time it was handed over to President Muhammadu Buhari to sign, it had been padded. Apparently, members of the House had slipped in additional items of expenditure, prompting President Buhari to refuse to sign the budget into law until the anomalies were corrected.

 

Yesterday, Hon Dogara finally took action on the debacle, sacking Hon Jibrin, leading to many members of the House to jubilate. Hon Jibrin, an All Progressives Congress lawmaker from Kano State, was immediately replaced by another member from Kano State Hon Mustapha Bala-Dawaki.

 

 Up until yesterday, Hon Bala-Dawaki was the chairman, House Committee on Housing. However, Hon Jibrin quickly denied that he was sacked, adding that he met Hon Dogara who told him that he could no longer continue as a chairman.

 

Hon Dogara had been under pressure to sack Hon Jibrin since May when the details of the 2016 budget caused disaffection between him and other members. A major sore point was the allegation that he allocated projects worth over N4bn to his Bebeji Federal Constituency in Kano State, while some lawmakers had no projects in their constituencies.

 

Among his committee members, many were also said to be unhappy with Hon Jibrin for hoarding information on the details of the N6.06tn budget from them. Such lawmakers had so much trust in Hon Jibrin that they passed the 2016 budget without accurate information on the details.

 

They were said to have been embarrassed when they later got to know about the details of the budget and how they reportedly felt short-changed in the distribution of projects. President Buhari subsequently withheld his assent to the budget for several weeks after the budget was passed, owing to the padding crisis between the executive and the National Assembly.

 

The controversial N100bn built into the budget for the constituency projects of National Assembly also generated tension. Principal officers of the Senate and the House were said to have been allocated projects valued at over N40bn.