President Jonathan presented the 2013 amended budget in April following his objection to some aspects of the 2013 budget which he signed in February. Specifically, the President rejected the zero allocation given to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by the National Assembly as well as allocation to constituency projects by the Lawmakers.
However, at yesterday’s plenary, the House almost threw away the amended appropriation bill on the ground of claims that the chamber had no business with the bill.
The House Majority Leader, Hon .Mulikat Akande-Adeola read out the bill from the Presudent which was titled ‘ A Bill for an Act to amend the 2013 Appropriation Act to issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund N4,987,382,196,000 out of which N2,418,976,391?494 is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure while N1,588,578,805,197 is for contribution to the Development Fund for capital expenditure.
‘Also, N388,063,000,000 is for statutory transfer while N591,764,000,000 is for debt service.’
Drama started soon after the presentation of the bill as Hon. Yakubu Dogara (PDP, Bauchi) raised a point of order. He turned the attention of the House to the fact that the bill was in breach of the constitution and argued that this was not supported by House rules.
He advised that the bill should not be discussed on the floor. He said “Against the rules, this is Appropriation bill number two. What the President ought to do is to accompany the amendments with the signed copy of the Appropriation Act, which he never did.
“To proceed with the amendment will be an action in illegality. The bill is incompetent and should not be debated”. There was a deafening applause from members.
Deputy House Leader, Hon Leo Ogor (PDP, Delta) who attempted to support the bill was roundly booed and shouted down by his colleagues. It took several minutes before sanity was restored .
Tambuwal however prevailed on his colleagues to yield the floor to Ogor, saying, “we have to give everyone the opportunity to make his points and at the end of the day, it is still the majority that must have its way”.
Ogor, who backed his argument with House rules said there were precedents and that what the lawmakers supposed to do was to allow the bill scale the second reading in order to allow for a thorough job, as well as correct anomalies inherent in the bill.
Sensing that the bill will die if it is put to vote, the Speaker declined calls for point of order being raised by some members who were bent on seeing the bill killed. He appealed to the emotion of the lawmakers by reminding them that a constitutional matter has been raised in the bill which must be looked into by a select group of the House
He said “Since a point of order has been raised on the status of the bill, it is a fundamental issue and whenever such a fundamental issue arises, we set up a panel that will look at it and report back for us to be properly guided on whichever decision we are going to take.”
Daily Sun