PH
Senators wanted to keep as a secret the fact that fact that the 2016 budget documents were stolen from the National Assembly, according to a Premium Times report.
Reports on Tuesday indicated that the hard and soft copies of the 2016 budget proposal presented to the joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015 had been declared missing.
“The Senators also resolved that the matter be kept under wraps, saying making it public could embarrass the presidency, the National Assembly and the country,” the report said.
The upper chamber was scheduled to commence deliberations on the proposed budget on Tuesday.
The senators were shocked when Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, revealed that the budget documents had been stolen and could not be found within the prescient of the National Assembly.
The discussion has since been postponed, and according to Ndume can only be resumed once fresh documentation has been received from the minister of finance or the presidency.
Some members of the Senate also were skeptical about the fact that the documents were stolen, suggesting that the National Assembly and the presidency withdraw the documents in order to fix discrepancies without alerting the Senate.
