The House of Representatives passed President Goodluck Jonathan's amendment to the 2013 Appropriation Act last week to avoid an aggravated crisis in the country, it was learnt yesterday.
President Jonathan had in March returned to the Senate and the House of Representatives the 2013 budget as he signed it, but the House threw out his proposals on the basis that the proposals were unconstitutional and must come in form of a supplementary budget.
The House, however, made a u-turn on Thursday, December 20, 2012 and passed the 2013 budget of N4.987 trillion as against the N4.924 trillion presented by Jonathan, which represents a difference of N63 billion.
Chairman of the Committee on House Services, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, at a press briefing yesterday, explained that the National Assembly passed the amendment because the executive had reworked its earlier proposals into specifics. "What we must understand is that it was not that same document that we threw away that was passed.
As soon as we rejected that for failure to meet the test, I guess they must have learnt their lessons, maybe with the advice of the Attorney- General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, they brought another document. "Now, in this document, the sections they clearly wanted to be amended were specified.
They brought the principal Act, which is the 2013 Appropriation Act that has been signed by the President, and said 'okay', hold this section and replace this section with this; put this fund here, replace this one with this; reduce this one from here, and include it there." Dogara said.
He added that; "The thinking of the House was that in order not to run through serious crisis since we were going to go on our annual recess, we should help them to perfect this document and just pass it in the interest of Nigerians. I believe that all the parties have learnt their lessons, and these mistakes would never be repeated in the future."
