– The 2016 budget drama continues as the House of Reps stops Adebayo Shittu, the minister of Communications from presenting his budget proposal
– The lawmaker spot discrepancies between Shittu’s budget and President Buhari’s budget
– The House reveals when the 2016 Budget will be passed by the National Assembly
A mild drama played out at the House of Representatives on Monday, February 15, as the Joint Committees on Telecommunications/Information Communication Technologies again stopped the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, from defending his ministry’s budget proposal, The Punch reports.
The House had last week rejected the minister’s budget proposal on the grounds that his ministry’s budget was different from that which President Muhammadu Buhari submitted to the House.
At a session yesterday, the Joint Committees on Telecommunications/Information Communication Technologies again directed Shittu to take the budget back and re-work it. This came just five minutes after he was ushered into the lower chamber.

It was gathered that one of the co-chairmen, Saheed Fijabi, had asked that the meeting to be called off.
Fijabi said:“We are dealing with two budgets here. What the minister is presenting is different from what Mr. President gave us.
“We have to agree on whether to accept his own or we stop him and take another date.”
His colleagues led by Mohammed Onawo backed Fijabi.
Onawo said:“The power of appropriation lies with the legislature and we are bound by law to do what is right.
“From the figures available to us, we have to work in the interest of the nation. We have to do the needful.”
The 2016 budget drama continues as the House of Reps stop Adebayo Shittu, the minister of Communications from presenting his budget proposal

Shittu earlier gave the highlights of the budget as N5bn (capital projects), N600m (personnel cost), and N240m (overhead cost).
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation has revealed that the 2016 budget would be passed“not later than second week of March”by the National Assembly.
This was disclosed by the chairman of the committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin as the standing committees of the House began to submit their reports to the Appropriation Committee for collation.
According to reports, the House will have three sitting days in the second week of March — March 8, March 9 and March 10. This means that the budget should likely be passed latest on March 10.
Jibrin said the House procedure was that each standing committee, after concluding the defence of budget proposals by agencies under their supervision, would submit a report to the Committee on Appropriation.
He added that the Committee on Appropriation was the clearing house for all recommendations on any amendments made to the proposals of the agencies.
He said: “We are taking the reports from the committees beginning from today (Monday). We want to pass the budget not later than second week of March.
“We will take the reports of the standing committees up to Friday and take another few days to clean up the budget.”