2016 budget: Buhari returns ‘grey areas’ to N’Assembly

President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, sent back ‘grey areas’ in the N6.06 trillion 2016 budget to

the National Assembly.
Federal lawmakers confirmed receipt of “a list of grey areas” from the president in the 2016 budget after yesterday’s plenary.
Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas confirmed they received a list of the contentious issues to be corrected.
He further disclosed that the leadership of the Senate and House had met over the letter containing the ‘grey areas in the budget’ to ensure and hasten concurrence.
“Speaker Yakubu Dogara met with the president as mandated by the House. I can confirm that we are in possession of the list of the grey areas,” he said.
However, Namdas was not forthcoming on to the ‘grey areas’ as listed by the president.
The House spokesman also didn’t say if the N60 billion Calabar-Lagos rail project was listed in the letter.
He also refused to explain why Dogara jettisoned the tradition of reading executive communications on the floor of the House by not reading the latest letter from the president.
Across the aisle, senators were locked in a closed-door session where the 2016 budget was extensively debated.
Daily Sun gathered that some senators demanded the resignation of Appropriations Committee Chairman, Senator Danjuma Goje.
Rising from the session, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided, simply reported progress and said “the Senate, in a closed session, deliberated on issues relating to the 2016 Appropriation Bill and the way forward for the quick resolutions of all the matters related to the early implementation of the budget in the best interest of our nation.”