The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has expressed concern over the reaction of the National Assembly to his observations on the 2017 Budget as passed by the legislature.

Fashola had in a recent interview, complained that the legislators had in approving the budget, reduced funds for some key projects of his ministry and allocated the money to some frivolous ones.

He had disagreed with the practice where the legislature unilaterally altered the budget after putting members of the Executive through budget defence sessions and committee hearings.

According to him, it amounted to a waste of tax-payers money and unnecessary distortion of orderly planning, for the lawmakers to unilaterally insert items not under the exclusive or concurrent lists.

Specifically, Fashola had said that the lawmakers altered the budgetary allocations for rehabilitation of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Bodo-Bonny road and the Kano-Maiduguri road.

Other projects whose funds were tampered with by the national assembly, he alleged, were the second Niger Bridge and the long-drawn Mambilla Hydropower project.

He said the allocations were diverted to construction of scores of boreholes and primary health care centres, which were never discussed during the ministerial budget defence at the parliament.

But the spokespersons of the Senate and the House of Representatives, in separate responses, had accused the minister of spreading “half-truths” and making “fallacious’’ statements.

They accused the minister of wanting to hold on to the projects he complained about in order that he may continue to award contracts.