‘2016 budget still open for scrutiny’

[caption id="attachment_893" align="aligncenter" width="147"] Gbenga Ashafe[/caption]The Chairman, Senate Committee on Land

Transportation, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, has said that

Nigerians can still scrutinise the content of the 2016

budget, which was passed into law last week by both

chambers of the National Assembly.

Ashafa, who stated this in an interview with our

correspondent, explained that any individual or

group that believed that the budget was not properly

worked on by the lawmakers should wait till the

document was published to make their observations.

He explained that the National Assembly would

make the 2016 budget open to the public once it was

assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The senator, however, assured Nigerians that his

colleagues in the upper chamber and those in the

House of Representatives worked hard to resolve the

issue of budget padding and other fraudulent

practices discovered in the document.

He said, “We have promised the world that we will

throw the budget open to members of the public

when it is passed. Anybody who believes that the

figures are still controversial is free to point it out.

“I can however assure you that a lot of work had

been put into this budget. Experts had been called.

Government officials, politicians and civil society

groups all made inputs before its eventual passage.

“I see the interest shown by Nigerians in the budget

as a positive phenomenon because without the

enthusiasm, we might not be able to put in as much

effort as we put in.”