Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management & Social Development, Ms Sadiya Faruq, was turned back from defending 2020 budget by the joint senate committee on poverty alleviation. Chairman of the committee, Mr Lawan Gumau, said the action was taken because of the failure of the ministry to provide the committee with the copies of 2019 budget presentation.

Gumau, who spoke on top of his voice said the committee would no longer tolerate the rude behaviour of the two Special Advisers to President Muhammadu Buhari who accompanied the Minister for the defense session.

“Hon Minister, we know you are new but the two SAs knew very well that 2019 budget must be presented before the 2020. We didn’t persuade them to bring it to the 2019 budget defense. We have tolerated them before and brought ourselves low in the interest of this country,” he said

He rescheduled the session to 10:00am on Monday and warned that all the budget documents must be available to the committee on the appointed date.

“I apologised to the minister because she is new but for the two SAs, I have no apology,” he added.

In her response, the minister apologised to the committee for not providing the hard copy of 2019 budget.

“The hard copy of 2020 budget submitted earlier was attached with a flash drive that contains 2019 budget,” she explained.

Daily Trust