More facts are emerging as to why Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara sacked a member of the House, Abdulmumin Jibrin as chairman of the House Appropriation Committee.
It was gathered yesterday that Jibrin had singled-handedly jerked up the budget by N250 billion over and above executive proposal submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari, Leadership Newspaper published.
A source who is a ranking member of the House disclosed that when the final copy of the budget document was tabled by Jibrin for passage on a Thursday by the two chambers, it was discovered that the lawmaker had actually upped the budget by N250 billion.
“The senate president and the speaker, directed Jibrin to not only revert to original figure proposed by the president but also lower it by about N30 billion because of expected drop in revenue.That was why the budget was not passed until the following Tuesday”, the source who preferred not to be named in print said.
Apart from allocating N4.1 billion to his constituency, Jibrin was also alleged to have tinkered with reports of all standing Committees on the budget by cutting 10 per cent of all capital votes of all ministries, departments and agencies across board.
It was also claimed that he touched even personnel budgets of some MDAs, meaning that they won’t pay workers salaries.
“These were the mess he (Jibrin) made of the budget, that was why the president said he would not sign it and the senate president and the speaker agreed with the president on this and they constituted a special committee under the chairmanship of the Deputy Speaker Sulaimon Lasun to clean up the mess he did”, the source added.
Jibrin Trying Desperately To Curry Public Sympathy- Kurfi
Meanwhile, the vice chairman, House of Representatives committee on downstream sector, Danlami Muhammad Kurfi has lashed out at the former chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin for calling on Speaker Dogara to resign.
Jibrin who was removed as chairman of the appropriation committee by Speaker Dogara, had in a statement, said the trio of Speaker, deputy speaker and the minority leader of the House, should resign.
But Kurfi who represents Dutsinma/Kurfi federal constituency of Katsina state said the former appropriation committee chairman should not be taken serious because his utterances were mere ranting of someone who is paying for his actions.
“Why did it take him this long to tell Mr President that the Speaker dines with his enemies?” Kurfi queried and insisted that the appropriation committee should thank his stars that his sack came when members were on recess.
“If this had happened while we were in session, some of us would have moved for his suspension” he noted.
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