The Senate leader, Senator Ali Ndume, has revealed how due diligence and integrity checks carried out by the Senate led to the discovery of the doctored 2016 budget on Monday.
The Senate leader, who spoke with newsmen in his office, said investigations carried out showed that two versions of the budget were in circulation.
He, however, said barring any unforeseen circumstances, President Muhammadu Buhari had signified intention to withdraw the document through a written communication to the leadership of the National Assembly at the weekend, the content of which would be read on the floor of the Senate today.
Ndume reiterated his stand on the missing budget during a chat with newsmen that there was nothing like disappearance of the document from the Senate or from the House of Representatives as reported in the media, but agreed that what happened was discrepancies in figures discovered at the level of integrity checks.
“As I earlier stated, no budget is missing in the Senate because it is not even possible for a document laid before a joint session of the National Assembly by a sitting president to miss.
“What only happened and blew out of proportion by the opposition are slight differences observed in copies of the documents at the level of integrity checks.
“What I can tell you now is that in the budget that was submitted originally, there were certain integrity check on it that made some changes in the quantity but not in the total,” he said.
He, however, described the call for impeachment proceedings against President Muhammadu Buhari over the budget controversy as a bad joke from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying “if we are to consider the act of impunity committed at the presidency during PDP’s 16 years rule, then Nigerians deserve to kill the party and anything it represents.”
He informed that there was no punishment that awaited the presidency over the integrity checks failure of the budget, insisting that the president did not submit a failed budget but a budget that, during integrity checks, showed some discrepancies that needed to be corrected.
Inspite of the controversy trailing the budget document, he said the Senate and, by extension, the National Assembly , would get it passed into law latest by the end of February.
“We are targeting end of February to round off on the budget. In fact, if not for this mix up, we are committed to turning out the budget on time,” he said.
Ndume also said the appearance of the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, before the Senate over the dwindling fortune of the Naira in the international market, which was scheduled for today, would be conducted behind closed door.