2019 budget: Buhari playing to the gallery – Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to stop blaming others for his inadequacies and failures.

The speaker made detailed references to prove his point in a statement he made available to newsmen on Tuesday.

Reacting to a claim by Buhari on Monday where the President blamed the National Assembly for the late passage of 2019 appropriation bill into law, Dogara accused the president of merely playing to the gallery to cover up for his failures.

“President Muhammadu Buhari a few days ago, in his usual characteristics of self-righteousness, and buck-passing blamed tardiness in the passage of budgets by the National Assembly for the delay in the completion of projects across the country by his government.

“To set the record straight, this is a President who, from the inception of his government didn’t show any sign that he was well prepared and ready for the job he sought for four times in 16 years and for which we voted for him.

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“Since his assuming office, the president has been unable to present the budget on time. His first budget was the 2016 budget which was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the fiscal year.

“The minimum the National Assembly requires to pass a budget is three months. But he presented it just nine days to 2016.

“Again, the 2017 budget was presented on December 14, 2016, just 17 days to the end of 2016. ‘The earliest he presented budget was on November 7, 2017, which was the 2018 appropriations bill. It was less than two months to the end of the year.

“However, his ministers refused to appear before National Assembly committees to defend the budget for five months thereby delaying the passage.

“It was after the leadership of the National Assembly sought the President’s intervention on March 16, 2018, that the ministers reluctantly appeared before the committees, an exercise that takes at least one month to complete.

“In fact, some of them who felt they were super ministers sent in their permanent secretaries.

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“What Nigerians didn’t know and the President won’t say is that the Executive through the various ministries continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget. These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt the letters are there with the dates they were written and received. But here’s Buhari blaming the National Assembly.”