Enyinnaya Abaribe, chairman,
senate committee on power, steel development and metallurgy, says N30 billion
was smuggled into the power budget.
He said the N30 billion was
listed for expansion and re-enforcement of infrastructure in the distribution
companies to reduce stranded firms.
The senator said his committee
was not aware of the insertion.
He said: “The amount never passed
through the senate power committee. Where did such huge sum of N30 billion come
from?
“Let the budget office and other
relevant bodies conduct self examination. Such self examination will go a long
way to clear gray areas.”
Meanwhile, the south-east senate
caucus has expressed shock over the cut in the budget allocation for the Enugu
airport terminal.
Abaribe, chairman of the caucus,
said an emergency meeting of south-east lawmakers had been summoned to unravel
when the cut was effected and by who.
The senator said, “no right
thinking Igbo man would support any cut on allocation for projects in the
south-east region”.
He said the budget documents were
verifiable and noted that “we are committed and determined to find out who made
the cut”.
Abaribe said members of the
caucus actually lobbied for the Enugu airport terminal allocation to be
increased to N3.5 billion until the ministry of aviation told them that it
could not be increased beyond the N2 billion allocation.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed
the 2018 budget on Wednesday, revealing that the national assembly made cuts
amounting to N347 billion in the allocation to 4,700 projects submitted to it
for consideration.
He also said 6,403 projects were
injected by the lawmakers, amounting to N578 billion.
The president said many of the
project cuts were critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to
implement with the reduced allocation.
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