We’ll hold you to every word, Dogara tells Buhari

Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives, says the national assembly will hold President Muhammadu Buhari to every word and provision in the 2016 budget.

Buhari had presented a N6.08 trillion budget before a joint session of the national assembly on Tuesday.

In his presentation, the president projected a capital expenditure of N1.8trn, which is 30 percent of the total budget.

He also announced that his government would implement social welfare programmes to alleviate the suffering of “the poorest of the poor,” and that 500,000 graduate teachers would be employed to teach in primary schools across the country.

Taking the vote of thanks at the end of the presentation, Dogara assured the president that the national assembly would pass the budget in good time.

He said the assembly would work towards prescribing a 12-month financial year to enhance the full implementation of the budget.

“The national assembly may need to prescribe another date as the financial year in line with provisions of section 3 (18) of the constitution whenever the budget is not passed before January 1 of any given year,” he said.

“The letter and spirit of the constitution requires that the financial shall not be less than 12 months. The date of the commencement of the financial year may change, but not the 12-month period as prescribed in the constitution.

“Consequently, if this proposal is accepted it may become imperative that the 2016 budget may commence 12 months from the day it is signed into law by Mr President. The budget will only have a realistic chance of implementation when the executive have 12 uninterrupted months to execute it.

“In the spirit of change that has come to the legislature, we promise Nigerians to hold Mr President to every word and provisions of the budget when passed and assented to.”