Nobody padded 2016 Budget – Presidential Aide

Determined to douse the ten­sion created by the ragging controversy at the House of Repre­sentatives over the al­leged padding of the 2016 Appropriation by the leadership of the House, the Presidency yesterday rubbished claims by the former Chairman, House Committee on Appro­priation Hon Abdul­mumin Jubrin, insisting that there was no truth in the alleged padding of the 2016 Appropria­tion budget.

The Special Adviser to President Muham­madu Buhari on Na­tional Assembly Mat­ters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, said yester­day that all the allega­tions were never true, claiming that the bud­get which has already been passed and ac­cented to by President Muhammadu Buhari is the same budget that is being executed.

Enang, who made the declaration after he was drilled along with the Special Assistant to the President on House of Representative Matters, Ismaila Kawu for over three hours by the Na­tional Working Com­mittee (NWC) of the All Progressives Con­gress, (APC) stated that the lexicon ‘padding’ was alien to the Nation­al Assembly, stressing that he does not want to speak much on it since the party is already handling it.

It would be recalled that the APC leadership had already waded into into the crisis when it summoned both the Speaker, Yakubu Dog­ara and Abdulmumin Jibrin to the party’s secretariat for ques­tioning with charges that they must stopping speaking to the public on the padding allega­tion which has brought some questions to the integrity of the ruling party in its anti-corrup­tion war.