Nigeria’s proposed 2016 budget has been the most controversial appropriation bill in a long time. From allegations that the budget was missing after it was submitted to the Senate, the budget was eventually withdrawn by the Presidency.
Varying versions of the proposed budget appeared online which showed and a former Central Bank governor, Chukwuma Soludo claimed that the proposed budget was largely just a copy of the 2015 budget.
Although the correct version of the proposed budget has been made public by the budget office, the Presidency has come under criticism for several instances of wastefulness in the budget as well as large sums budgeted for shady expenditure.
Two days ago, the Presidency shifted blame for the budget proposal to an unknown group they alleged had tampered with it and promised to fish out the officials responsible.
In a continuation of the budget brouhaha, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole who appeared before the Senate committee on health yesterday claimed that his ministry’s budget had been tampered with.
He alleged that the current budget proposal for the ministry of Health which is at the Senate is not the original budget which was submitted.
Prof. Adewole told the committee, “We have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee. This was not what we submitted. We’ll submit another one. We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget. What we submitted is not there. We have not reached that stage and we find the money there.”