The House of Representatives on Tuesday said it finally passed the ammended 2013 Appropriation Act that was submitted by President Goodluck Jonathan in March this year to avoid serious crisis.
The House had earkier threw away the document, claiming that it failed to meet the criteria for amendment, but made a u-turn on Thursday, July 25, after it was resubmitted by the executive.
Honourable Yakubu Dogara, chairman of the Committee on House Services, explained that the executive actually worked on the 2013 Appropriation Act that was signed by the President.
“What we must understand is that it was not that same document that we threw away that we passed. As soon as we rejected that one that they failed to meet the test, I guess they must have learnt their lessons, maybe with the advice of the attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, they brought another document. Now, in this document, the sections they clearly wanted to be amended were specified. They brought the principal act, which is the 2013 Appropriation Act that has been signed by the President, and said ‘okay, hold this section and replace this section with this; put this fund here, replace this one with this; reduce this one from here, and include it there.’” Dogara hinted.
He said “the thinking of the House was that in order not to run through serious crisis since we were going to go on our annual recess, we should help them to perfect this document and just pass it in the interest of Nigerians. I believe that all the parties have learnt their lessons, and these mistakes would never be repeated in the future.”
The House had on Thursday, December 20, 2012 passed the 2013 budget of N4.987 trillion as against the N4.924 trillion presented by President Goodluck Jonathan, which represents a difference of N63 billion.
But three months after, the President submitted the 2013 budget amendment proposal to the National Assembly, and urged the lawmakers to treat it with urgency.
President Jonathan, in the document, tactically accused the National Assembly of assuming the powers of the executive through certain clauses inserted into the budget, and implored the lawmakers to alter such contentious clauses.
He also noted that the amendment had become imperative in view of the cut in personnel cost and new provisions for some capital projects in the 2013 budget, which he said needed to be redressed.
Having listed the clauses under the 2013 Appropriation Act requiring amendment, Jonathan noted that such clauses “might be injurious to the spirit of separation of powers and which could hamper the work of the executive arm of government.”
