2016 Budget Doctored, Not Missing -Saraki …PDP Wants Buhari, Two Ministers Removed

L-R: His Lordship, Most Rev Ignatius Kattey, former Chief Judge,Justice Daisy Okocha, Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike and his wife Justice Eberechi Suzzette, shortly after a thanksgiving church service in honour of the retiring Chief Judge of the state at St Paul Cathedral Church, Garrison, Port Harcourt, yesterday. Photo: Nwiveh Donatus Ken

Rising from a two-hour closed door session , yesterday, President of the Senate,  Senator Bukola Saraki again denied the disappearance of the 2016 Appropriation Bill but disclosed that copies of a version different from the Bill as originally laid by President Muhammadu Buhari have been served to the Senators by the Special Adviser to Mr President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Eta Enang.
Saraki, in his speech after the closed-door session, said the
Senate considered the report of the ad-hoc committee mandated to investigate the controversy surrounding the 2016 budget document which has established that the copies sent to the Senate  by the SA’s office is not the version presented to the joint session of the National Assembly in December last year by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The controversy, which started with reports of withdrawal of the N6.08trillion budget proposal by the Presidency for some corrections about two weeks ago ,metamorphosed into missing of the document this week. But yesterday, Senate President said its a case of alteration or doctoring of the original docume
Saraki’ words “We have received the report of the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on investigations surrounding 2016 Appropriation Bill.
“Our finding is that Senator Ita Enang, the SSA to the President on NASS Matters printed copies on the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought to the Senate from where we discovered that what he brought is different from the version presented by Mr President.
“We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr President as soon as we receive soft copy of the original document from the Executive”.
Explaining further the new position of the Senate over the budget document controversy, the spokesman of the Senate, Senator Aliyu Sabi, ( APC Niger North), said with the committee’s discovery, it is clear that the document was not missing but doctored.
He said the Senate at the closed-door session resolved not to consider the fake document put in circulation by Ita Enang but the original one presented to the National Assembly by President Buhari in December last year.
According to him, the Senate in carrying out that resolution, was already putting machinery on ground at getting across to the Presidency directly for the soft copy of Mr President’s presentation for duplication to all senators ahead of general debate on it next week.
According to the Senate spokesman, “The report about a missing budget is not true. We don’t have a budget that is missing. But you recalled that the Senate President did inform Nigerians that there is an issue that a committee was asked to investigate.
“The investigation by the committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, has been submitted in the executive session. It was a decision we took at the last executive session.
“Our findings are these: That Mr  President did lay the budget before the joint session of the National Assembly, and thereafter, the Senate went on recess and upon resumption, copies of the document were produced by Senator Ita Enang, who is the SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters ( Senate ) and the copies were submitted to Senate and House of Representatives.
“What we found out is that the document submitted by Senator Ita Enang, upon our resumption, has some differences, discrepancies with what was originally laid by My President in the joint sitting of the National Assembly.
“However, the Senate in defence of its own integrity, honour, will not work with what has not been laid on the floor of the National Assembly. We are constitutionally mandated and duty bound to consider only that budget that had been so laid by Mr President.
“Right now, for reproduction, we are awaiting the soft copy of the originally submitted budget so that the National Assembly can reproduce the copy itself. That is the only time we can have confidence in the document we want to work with”.
Sabi, however, refused to speak on the claims by the House of Representatives that it had its own original version of the document, saying “I am not in the position to say the differences between the document submitted by the president and the one brought by Ita Enang. The committee that investigated the issue did not include that in their report”.
But efforts made by journalists to get reaction from Ita Enang on allegation of forgery levelled against him by the Senate on the 2016 budget document proved abortive as he declared that he will not join issues with them.
“The senators like the President, Muhammadu Buhari is my bosses, and I won’t like to join issues with them, particularly on this 2016 budget document controversy”, he said.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, has asked the National Assembly to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari, over the budget scandal rocking the National Assembly.
The party also demanded the resignation of two ministers, and the central bank governor.
The Senate yesterday accused ýa Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari, Ita Enang, of presenting to lawmakers an altered version of the 2016 budget.
Senators had earlier told newsmen that the budget documents presented by the president in December were missing, prompting a senate investigation.
At its plenary yesterday, the Senate said Mr. Enang, a former senator and now President. Buhari’s Assistant on National Assembly, changed the contents of the original document as presented by President Buhari.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said, “What he distributed is different from what was presented by the President and we have resolved not to address any version until we receive the version presented by the President”.
The PDP said in a statement signed by its acting national chairman, Uche Secondus, that its National Working Committee “rose from a meeting yesterday charging the National Assembly to commence impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari for the various constitutional breaches especially the submission of two version of the 2016 budget”.
The party said the National Assembly should thoroughly investigate the “shameful act, including the distortion and banding of figures to accommodate their personal interest and ensure that appropriate sanctions is meted to whoever has a hand in the dubious action that has brought embarrassment to the legislative body”.
The party also asked the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, to resign “having failed to provide the much needed capacity in the management of the nation’s economy resulting in the embarrassing crashing of the nation’s currency to as low as N305 to a dollar”.
Also, the party asked the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to resign “for plunging the country’s currency policy into chaos an action that thrown investors into total confusion”.
“We sympathizes with Nigerians who are seriously undergoing terrible hardship because of the now obvious inept leadership of APC despite the promise of one Naira to a dollar.
“What hope can a government that allows its currency to break a 43 year old record crashing to over N300 to one dollar offer and yet does not show it has clear focus of what to do,” the party said.
The party said that “APC government rather than address very grievous national issues created by its lack of capacity to govern has instead resorted to violation of peoples rights in the name of fighting corruption”.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has reacted to the call by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The PDP attacked the President yesterday after the Senate accused the presidency of altering the 2016 budget.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said a copy of the budget received from the President was different from what his aide, Ita Enang, distributed to its members.
Lawmakers had earlier told newsmen that the original document was missing.
In a statement yesterday, PDP asked the National Assembly to impeach the president, and called for the resignation of the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, and Budget and National Planning Minister, Udo Udoma.
The party also demanded the resignation of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
APC dismissed the call as “comical”.
It is confusing and worrisome that the PDP calls for an investigation into the budget issue and at the same time calls for the removal and resignation of the aforementioned,” the party said in a statement by its national secretary, Mala Buni.
“In both content and context, PDP’s statement constitute a distraction to the National Assembly.”
The party said it was confident that the 8th National Assembly would not be distracted by the PDP in “its new desperate plot to divert attention from the ongoing investigation into mind-boggling cases of corruption perpetuated under its defunct 16-year rule”.

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi.