The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo has written to the House of Representatives to request for a virement of 1365.6 billion Naira to some critical priority projects in the 2017 budget.

Osinbajo had on June 12 after signing the 2017 budget said that there was an agreement between the executive and the legislature that a request for virement can be sent later.

This he said was to make up for the decision of the lawmakers to slash allocation for some major projects.

These projects, according to him, include the railway standard gauge projects, the Mambilla Power Project, the Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway etc. which they had reduced to fund some of the new projects they introduced.

He added that the budgetary allocations would be reinstated by way of an application for virement by the Executive.

“It is as a result of that understanding and the outcome of our detailed engagements that we feel able to sign the 2017 Appropriations Bill into law today,” he said.

Earlier, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN), criticised the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, for his comments concerning complaints the minister made about the input of the National Assembly in his ministry’s budget.

Fashola and the lawmakers have traded accusations since late June when he accused the National Assembly of unilaterally slashing budgetary allocation for key projects such as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the 2nd Niger Bridge.

“If after we have defended the budget and we had gone and the legislature unilaterally changed the budget, what is the purpose of deliberation?’’ he was quoted as saying.

But the House of Representatives, in a statement by the Chairman of its Committee On Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, said minister’s comments were part of “the pattern adopted by elements in the executive arm of government to delegitimise the 2017 Appropriation Act”, which was signed into law by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

•Text courtesy of Channels TV.

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