Obi To Senate: Come Clean On N3trn Budget Padding

Labour Party (LP) standard bearer in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, has admonished the Senate to come clean and clear all the allegations of N3 trillion padding in the 2024 budget.
Obi on his X handle yesterday told the upper chamber that Nigerians deserve to know the truth about the allegations, especially as the Senate and the executive arm of government are singing discordant tunes on the matter and fresh allegations cropping up on the sharing of constituency funds in the budget.

The former Anambra State governor said, “The fuss over the alleged N3 trillion padded into the 2024 budget raised by a senator still rages as the Senate reaction of suspending the whistle-blower has not addressed vital issues emanating from the allegation.
“The senator is insisting on his allegation and the executive agreed that there was only N1.2 trillion padded not N3 trillion as alleged by the Senate.
“Fresh allegations have also cropped up over indiscriminate and unbalanced allocation of constituency projects by the Senate leadership.

“A civic group, Budgit, through their official, has also added their voice to agree with thes. They alleged that there was no detailed project allocations for about N3.7 trillion in the 2024 Appropriation Act.
“As the Senate suspension of the senator involved has not addressed the issue, they still owe the Nigerian public a clear clarification over the various claims and counterclaims, including that of the executive arm, to be able to know exactly what is happening, and also disclose to the public, the amounts allocated for constituency projects for appropriate monitoring of implementation by the public.
“I had particularly elucidated in my earlier comment on what we can use the N3 trillion to achieve, by showing that it is more than the national budget of the two most critical components of the human development index, health and education, combined.

“Now that the executive arm has accepted that the padded amount is only N1.2 trillion, it is still a very significant amount, when you consider that it is almost 5 times the N251.47 billion proposed for Universal Basic Education, which is the foundation of education, in the Country.

“Today in Nigeria, the greatest challenge to human resource development is education, which has been identified as most critical at the basic level. Nigeria has about 20 million out-of-school children today because of the poor investment in education. These are resources that would have been utilised to ensure that our children are taken off the streets and returned to schools…

“We must, as a matter of urgency, put a stop to all the wastage of our scarce resources, amid the excruciating hardship in the country. Let every penny of our public fund be used for public good. That is the only way to achieve the New Nigeria we are working towards,” Obi added.