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THE Presidency has confronted the leadership of the National Assembly, NASS, with details of distortions orchestrated by the lawmakers in the 2016 budget and asked them to urgently address them in the interest of the nation.

The two chambers of the National Assembly on Monday also took up the Executive arm of government on the controversy trailing the 2016 Budget, putting the blame at the door steps of the Minister of Transport, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.
 
While the House of Representatives accused Amaechi of padding the budget by including the Lagos-Calabar rail project in it without the knowledge of President Muhammadu Buhari, the Senate asserted that there was a floating N54 billion in the Ministry of Transport budget which it spread on the rail projects across the country.
 
The National Assembly therefore asked Nigerians to hold Amaechi responsible for the blunders in the Appropriation Bill.
 
At a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdaz, said most of the stories in the media were mere propaganda and meant to push Nigerians against the legislature.

Namdaz explained that the Lagos Calabar rail project was not contained in the Appropriation Bill President Buhari sent to the National Assembly.
According to him, the item was brought for inclusion in the document by Amaechi, but was turned down because only the President is allowed to present the budget before the National Assembly.

This, he said, was an attempt at padding the budget by the minister.

He said: "The media is flooded with stories that the National Assembly has removed the Lagos- Calabar railway project from the budget. I want to make it very clear that we don't have that in the presentation made by the President to the National Assembly; so, we couldn't have removed what was not even inserted in the first place.

"It was the Minister of Transport that brought the Lagos-Calabar rail project to be included in the budget. We want to state clearly that the budget is something that is proposed by the President, we do not receive budgets from ministers.

"So, for somebody to say that we actually removed the Calabar-Lagos rail project from the budget, I think someone is trying to spoil our good image.

"We want to state again that all that was sent to the National Assembly from the supplementary budget and others had a smooth sail, and it is on record that some people lost their jobs because of this budget; the Executive has agreed that some people tampered with it,"� he said.

The spokesman of the Senate, Senator Abdullahi Sabi, denied the inclusion of Lagos-Calabar rail project in the budget that was submitted to the National Assembly by Buhari.

"What was not there, how come suddenly we were the ones to blame for its exclusion? I think these are questions that we should ask and I think the Minister of Transportation should hear it. The documents are public documents, all of you have access to it; you can also verify it."�

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Land Transport, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, said it was not true that the upper House removed the Lagos-
Calabar rail line project from the 2016 Budget.

Senator Ashafa said: "I confirm that the Lagos to Calabar rail line was not in the original document that was presented to the National Assembly by the Executive. However, subsequently at the budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Land Transport, the Minister for Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, did inform the committee of the omission of the Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project and indeed sent a supplementary copy of the ministry's budget to the committee which contained the said project.

The Minister noted that the amount needed for the counterpart funding for both the Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation projects was N120 billion, being N60 billion  per project. "While the committee did not completely agree with all the changes made in the subsequent document, being fully aware of the critical importance of the rail sector to the development of our dear country, distinguished members of the Senate Committee on Land transport keyed into the laudable (Lagos to Calabar, rail modernisation) project and found ways of appropriating funds for the project without exceeding the envelope provided for the ministry, he said.

Ashafa continued:  "In so doing, the committee observed that the Lagos to Kano rail rehabilitation project had been allocated the sum of N52 billion as against the sum of N60 billion which the Hon. Minister requested as counterpart funding while no allocation whatsoever was made for the Lagos to Calabar rail line.

"Hence, the sum of N54 billion that was discovered by the Senate Committee on Land Transport to be floating in the budget of the Ministry of Transportation as presented by the Executive was injected into augmenting the funds needed for counterpart funding of both projects (Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar Rail modernisation), as at the time the committee defended its report before the senate committee on Appropriation.

"The Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project was, therefore, included in the Senate Committee on Land Transport's recommendation to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

"With regard to the Idu to Kaduna rail completion, the Senate Committee on Land Transport did not interfere with what was provided for in the budget as sent by the executive, being approximately N18 billion hence I am equally surprised to read on the pages of the newspapers that the amount allocated to the said project was reduced by N8 billion.

"While I would have preferred to wait till Tuesday, April 12, 2016 (today) when the National Assembly reconvenes in order to have the benefit of viewing the details of the budget that was conveyed to the executive as passed, I am compelled to place the facts in proper perspective as it relates to the activities of the Senate Committee on Land Transport.

"Without prejudice to the considerations and powers of the Senate Committee on Appropriations with regard to the appropriations process, the foregoing is the true reflection of what transpired at the committee level with respect to the Land Transport sector of the Ministry of Transport,"�Ashafa said.