Lawmakers in the House of
Representatives yesterday threatened to commence impeachment moves
against President Goodluck Jonathan over refusal of the Federal
Government to implement the 2012 Appropriation Act.
Trouble started when Rep. Albert Sam-Tsokwa (PDP, Taraba) and 20 others
moved a motion on “Non-Implementation of the 2012 Budget’, arguing that
the “2012 National Budget was passed with an aggregate expenditure
figure of N4.887 trillion, including the N180 billion for Subsidy
Re-Investment(SURE) Programme”.
Tsokwa expressed regret that despite
huge earnings from agencies of government in the 1st and 2nd quota, the
Federal Ministry of Finance under Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was yet to
release monies allocated to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Chairman of the House committee on
Appropriations Rep. John Enoh (PDP, Cross Rivers) lamented that the
government has consistently refused to implement the budget.
For his part, Chairman House Committee
on Defence Rep. Bashir Adamu Kazaure (PDP, Jigawa) said “there are
other governments within the government who appropriate funds with
impunity without recourse to the National Assembly.”
Rep. Abdulmumin Jibrin (PDP, Kano), who
chairs the committee on Finance reeled out figures from the various
revenue generating agencies.
The House unanimously passed a single
resolution urging the President to direct Finance Minister to “stop
forthwith continued violation of the 2012 Appropriation Act by
releasing all outstanding funds to MDAs.”
No comments:
Post a Comment