Posted by By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, JAMES OJO, Abuja on
A drama played out at the National Assembly on Wednesday as both chambers of the national legislature hurriedly passed the harmonised budget 2008, in time for President Umaru Yar'Adua's assent.
A drama played out at the National Assembly on Wednesday as both chambers of the national legislature hurriedly passed the harmonised budget 2008, in time for President Umaru Yar'Adua's assent.
Both the Senate and the House of Represenatives ignored protocol to pass the contentious appropriation bill before adjourning for Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), members among them to attend the party's ward congresses slated for Saturday.
The upper chamber went into a long closed door session without observing the normal rituals of going through the votes and proceedings of the previous session before carrying out any new business for the day.
In the House's case, instead of the afternoon sitting it usually holds on Wednesdays, it convened in the morning and passed the budget without any objection raised.
As soon as senators converged on the chamber, Senator Ayogu Eze announced that newsmen in the chamber should 'leave," and allow senators to discuss.
The journalists had expected the Senate leader, Teslim Folarin, to move a motion for the Senate to go into a closed door session as was the practice.
All the journalists at the gallery left in droves, in compliance with the marching order from the Senate's spokesman. For about two and a half hours, the senators locked themselves in the chamber, deliberating on how best to wriggle out of the looming crisis between them and their counterparts in the House over the budget.
Daily Sun gathered that one of the bones of contention between both chambers was the insistence by the House of Representatives that it should not be treated as a 'junior" partner in the legislative business, insisting that Reps should get the same constituency allowances and other emoluments as the senators.
Initially, the Senate had refused to shift ground, insisting that senators should not be placed at par with the House members. Reason eventually prevailed and the Senate later agreed to pass the budget, as harmonized, believing that President Yar'Adua would return the Bill to them without assenting to it.
By 12.35 p.m, the senators returned to the plenary, with most of them standing in clusters discussing. In-between, a new order paper for the business of the day was prepared, which included, presentation of the 'Report of the National Assembly Conference Committee on Year 2008 Budget," an item that was hitherto not on the order paper earlier distributed to the senators and journalists.
By 1.p.m, the Senate was called to order and the votes and proceedings of the Tuesday's plenary was eventually taken and subsequently adopted.
Although the report was eventually presented and passed, a member of the conference committee told Daily Sun, 'we are just passing it to avoid trouble because we know that Mr. President will not sign the budget. It is just unrealistic. Therefore, the thing will still come back to us, by which time we can now sit down to do the right thing. There is nowhere in the world where senators are not regarded and treated as a senior partner in this business in relation to the House of Representatives."
Presenting the report, Senate Commitee Chairman on Appropriation, Iyiola Omisore, said the harmonized areas include recurrent expenditure, where both chambers agreed to allocate N158.051billion to Defence/MOD/Army//Air Force and Navy; Information and Communication, N19.683billion and Justice, N10.757billion.
Also, the Senate got N34.034billion as against N35,534,890,457,which it approved and passed for itself, but which the House had reduced in its earlier version to N30,534,890,457.
It also agreed to allocate to the Ministry of Agriculture, N119.113billion; Information and Communication, N5.250billion; Transportation, N199.598billion; Energy, N126.416billion; Environment, Housing and Urban Development, N9.773billion.
While the Senate got N5.831billion for capital expenditure, the House got N9.786bilion and N59.3billion was approved as conditional grants.
As soon as it was passed, the Senate adjourned briefly for 20 minutes, to allow the secretariat prepare the votes and proceedings of the session so that it could send same to the President for his assent. It resumed after 20 minutes, adopted the votes and proceedings and adjourned till next Tuesday to enable senators of the PDP extraction attend the party's ward and local government congresses billed for this weekend.
Briefing journalists after the speedy passage, spokesman of the House, Eziuche Ubani, said that arriving at a conclusion was not difficult as the areas of differences were not much.
He said: 'As a parliament, we have done our bit on the budget. It is now left for the president to sign the 2008 Appropriation bill into law. The conference of the Senate and the House sat for just one day. It shows that the difference was not much.
'A clean copy of the budget will be ready by tomorrow (Thursday) for the president to assent. Hopefully, all the clauses to make the budget affect the lives of Nigerians would be implemented by the relevant agencies."
He explained that $50billion was taken out of the budget the House passed earlier so as to tally with what the Senate passed.