Less than two
weeks after it rejected President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2016-2018 External
Borrowing Rolling Plan request of $29.96 billion, the Senate has returned the
proposal to the Presidency.
The Senate has
also returned the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal
Strategy Paper (FSP) of 2017-2019 to
Buhari.
Daily Sun could
not immediately ascertain when the two documents were sent back.
On November 1, 2016, the Upper
Chamber during
plenary, unanimously rejected the loan request. Two days later, it rubbished
the President’s MTEF and FSP, describing the documents as empty.
Observers
believe that the failure of the executive to submit supporting documents to the
loan request and the MTEF/FSP for examination was the reason for the rejection
The Senate
leadership in delaying processing of the 2017 Budget, had hoped to resolve some
of the outstanding issues of disagreements ahead of the budget’s presentation.
When the loan
request was rejected, lawmakers were silent on why the borrowing plan was
defeated. However, findings by Daily Sun, revealed that the Senate’s action was
as a result of the non-attachment of the breakdown of the $29.9 billion
external borrowing plan sent to the house.
Another reason
for the rejection was the refusal of the President to send the 2016-2018
borrowing plan contained in the last paragraph of the letter.
“The President
had in the letter said there was an attachment containing the breakdown of the
external loan request. But there was no attachment. President Buhari did not
attach the breakdown. There is no way we can consider such a request,” a source
said.
“Secondly, the
President has not sent the 2016-2018 borrowing plan to the Senate. That ought
to have been done first for consideration and passage before this request. If
we consider this request, how do we do that? These are the obvious reasons.
There is no political undertone here,” the lawmaker said.
Part of the
first paragraph under dispute read: “I wish to refer to the above subject and
to submit the attached draft of Federal Government 2016-2018 External Borrowing
(Rolling) Plan for consideration and early approval by the National Assembly to
ensure prompt implementation of the projects…”
Senate
Leader Ali Ndume had argued that the documents were shallow
and could therefore not be approved.
“We received
the MTEF on September 30 instead of
submitting it according to law by September 1, not later than. That is not even
the problem. I have a copy, I went through and the copies have been circulated.
I talked to some experts. Even in this chamber, we have people we can call
experts,” he said then.
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