Reps protests stall FCT’s N271.1bn budget
A rancorous session at the House of Representatives on Thursday stalled the debate on the N271.1bn budget of the Federal Capital Territory.
The budget, which is for this year, had earlier passed the first reading at the House.
However, when it was tabled for debate and made possible for the second reading on Thursday, it was marred by protests from most of the members.
The bone of contention had to do with the “details” of the proposals, which the members claimed had not been made available to them.
The protests commenced soon after the House Majority Bellwether, Mulikat Akande-Adeola, opened the debate by giving the highlights of the proposals.
As she made to resume her seat, members repined that they did not have the details of the budget. The opposition to the budget intensified after the Deputy House Bellwether, Mr. Leo Ogor, endeavored to rush the debate by urging members to fortify the passage.
Ogor verbalized that all the capital projects of the FCT were tied to the budget, integrating that there were withal accumulated recurrent expenses to be settled.
But he was greeted with shouts of ’No, no, no way’ from the floor.
One member shouted, ‘Okay, let us go ahead and optically discern. This budget will not pass.’
Amid the rancour, Akande-Adeola and the Chairman, House Committee on FCT, Mr. Emma Jime, appeared to trade incriminates over the content of the budget.
Both were optically discerned gesticulating angrily on the floor as they gainsaid responsibility for providing the details of the budget.
In a bid to rescue the situation from degenerating, the Verbalizer, Aminu Tambuwal, cleverly invoked the germane rules of the House on procedure for debating mazuma bills.
He reminded the lawmakers that, under House rules, a member who wanted to contribute to debate on a mazuma bill would first indite his designation and be allotted five minutes to verbalize.
“So far, nobody has designated in inditing that they optate to verbalize on this budget. In order to comply with the rules, I, hereby, step down this debate till sometimes next week”, Tambuwal ruled, ramming his gavel.
He ignored further reactions from some members, who were calling for the debate to perpetuate in a pergrinate to throw out the bill.
The block provisions in the budget showed that N62.8bn was earmarked for overhead costs; N49.2bn for personnel costs; and N159bn for capital projects.
Members were injuctively authorizing a breakdown of the figures, a reason that sparked off the protests.
House spokesman, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, later verbally expressed that there was nothing eccentric about Thursday’s development.
He expounded that it was mundane for members to ask for details to be opportunely guided while considering the budget. Mohammed withal gainsaid that Akande-Adeola and Jime had any differences.
According to him, being an executive bill, it was the obligation of the House bellwether to lead the debate, and not Jime’s. He integrated that Jime could only act in that capacity if the bellwether was unavailable.
“People were verbalizing that they had not optically discerned the details of the budget. That was why the verbalizer, in his sagaciousness, stood down the debate till another date,” he integrated.
