National Assembly leadership has spoken on the concerns raised by President Muhammadu Buhari on the manipulation of 2018 budget estimates sent to the lawmakers.

Mr Buhari on Wednesday signed the N9.1 trillion 2018 appropriation bill into law in his office at Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

In his speech during the budget signing, Buhari observed that “The National Assembly made cuts amounting to 347 billion Naira in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to 578 billion Naira.”

The president also complained of the period it took National Assembly to pass the budget. He said he submitted the budget on November 7, 2018 with a view to passage by December 2018.

In their reaction, Mr Bala Na’ Allah, deputy leader of the Senate who represented Senate President Bukola Saraki, and Chief Whip of House of Representatives, Mr Alhassan Doguwa, who represented Speaker Yakubu Dogara, said the lawmakers had no option than to tinker with the budget estimates.

Mr Na’ Allah said their job as parliamentarians is a difficult one.

“The way the budget came, if we had allowed it to go that way, we would have been in trouble with those who elected us,” the lawmaker told journalists after the budget signing ceremony.

The senator also said they decided to alter the budget in order “to balance between the six geo political zones” across the country.

He said it is the “balancing efforts” by the National Assembly that led to the observations raised by Mr Buhari.

On his part, Mr Doguwa said “certainly you wouldn’t expect us to just rubber stamp and just bring it back. We have to do the nitty-gritty of budget consideration.”

The chief whip also said they had to tinker with the budget because “whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well and we have done what we think is the right thing to do to deliver on the expectations and the mandate bestowed on us by the people of our constituencies.”

PT