Five fresh errors have been detected in the 2016 budget by the Senate and House Joint Committee on Appropriation.
These freshly detected errors as gathered was responsible for the committee’s inability to present it’s report to the two chambers of the National Assembly on Wednesday as promised.
The detected errors however are being fixed and has been confirmed will not affect the National Assembly’s plan to turn over the budget to the President before Easter celebration.
One of the detected errors was in the Office of the Secretary to the Government where the budget revealed certain amount has been recurrently budgeted since 2013 for procurement and installation of security systems every year.
The committee also spotted the absence of project locations in some of the proposed projected by the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing adding that oversight function is impossible without the location of the project.
Another of the errors detected was the lack of numerical and quantitative data to specify how many of a particular procurement budgeted for would be purchased as the committee came across such instances where the budgeted procurement did not specify how many of such items would be purchase.
The Senate Spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, when contacted said; “The errors in the budget were identified at the various committee levels. The Appropriation committees of both chambers had jointly scrutinised the document and had come up with an error-free copy.
“As a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, I can confirm to you that I am not aware of any fresh error discovered after the joint committee of the two chambers had worked on the budget.
“I challenge anyone with contrary information to publish it together with the source.”
However, Senate Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, said the report was undergoing “finishing touches.” adding that; “There are areas that require finishing touches. It will cut across several parts of the budget.
“But, I know it is something that will be quickly sorted out and the report will be laid by the grace of God tomorrow (today).”