President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday held a meeting with the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly, members of the Peoples Democratic Party's National Working Committee and governors elected on the platform of the party.
The meeting, which was held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, lasted about three hours.
Issues bothering on the need for political office holders to harmonise their positions and design their agenda for the people in the coming year to conform with the party's vision were said to have been discussed at the meeting.
The meeting was also said to have discussed at length the disparity in the 2013 budget by the NASS on Thursday and the one presented by Jonathan.
The NASS on Thursday formally passed a budget of N4.987tn for 2013, slightly raising the total figure by about N63bn. The original proposal by Jonathan was N4.924tn.
In the House of Representatives, members slashed the recurrent expenditure by over N100bn and increased capital projects allocation to N100bn. In the original proposal, Jonathan had set aside N2.41tn for recurrent expenditure, but the lawmakers slashed it to N2.38tn. Similarly, they raised capital vote to N1.62tn, up from Jonathan's N1.54tn.
Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Joy Emodi, who was part of the meeting, confirmed to State House correspondents that the budget issue was discussed at the meeting.
