The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on Tuesday has said President Muhammadu Buhari should be blamed and not the leadership of the National Assembly for the delay in the passage of the 2019 budgets.
Buhari, who had on Monday signed the 2019 budget into law, had later at night passed a vote of no confidence on Dogara and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
The President had blamed the delay in signing the 2019 budget on the leadership of the National Assembly.
However, Dogara said since President Buhari assumed office, he “has been unable to present budget on time.”
In a statement he signed, Dogara said: “His first budget was the 2016 budget, which was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the fiscal year.
“The minimum time the National Assembly requires to pass a budget is three months. But he presented it just nine days to 2016’ and that ‘what Nigerians didn’t know and the President won’t say is that the Executive through the various ministries continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget. These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt, the letters are there with the dates they were written and received. But here’s Buhari blaming the National Assembly.’
“President Muhammadu Buhari, a few days ago, in his usual characteristics of self-righteousness, and buck-passing, blamed tardiness in the passage of budgets by the National Assembly for the delay in the completion of projects across the country by his government.
“To be precise, the president said, ‘If the National Assembly takes seven months to pass a budget, then we should be commended for the much that we have achieved, and can still achieve. I personally feel very disappointed. I spoke with the leaders of the National Assembly on the issue that seven months is a long time to work on a budget.
“Even though buck passing and blame game is not new to Buhari as it is now his stock in trade; in the past few days and weeks, there is no day that passes without the President blaming others in a desperate move to exonerate himself from any blame or failure of the Executive under his leadership to execute projects across the country.
“In fact, very recently, Buhari blamed all his predecessors for failing to build infrastructure. And I wonder why? It was the general consensus that the former employees didn’t perform as expected and that was why Nigerians hired him for a job he has sought for four conservative times but here he is blaming the same people he replaced. If you are the boss of ” Nigeria limited”, what will you do this employee?
“Some weeks ago, he even blamed the media for failing to showcase his achievements.
“I’m very disappointed with the Nigerian press. They didn’t give this government the credit of the go back to the land programme he said