Both the Senate and the House of Representatives yesterday evening cleared the air on the reported disappearance of the 2016 Federal Budget, saying that no such thing has happened.

Senate spokesman, Aliyu Abdullahi, in an interview with Channels Television, said he was not aware that the 2016 budget was missing.

He was quoted as saying: “To the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any missing budget. What we discussed today is how we are going to work assiduously, as Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to consider the budget as submitted by the president.

“Added to this, we have agreed that we should work hard to make sure that by the end of February the budget is ready for approval or assent by the President.”

On his part, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, said in a separate interview with Channels TV that the claims may have been inspired by the initial insufficiency of the copies of the budget available to all the lawmakers.

His words: “As far as I am concerned, that story does not hold water. We were expecting copies to be printed and sent to the National Assembly but there was a bit of delay.

“As at yesterday, I can confirm to you that the Appropriation Committee in the House received a lot of copies of the budget. By the time the Clerk counted it today, it was not sufficient to go round members.

“I spoke with the Minister of Planning earlier today [Tuesday] and he assured me that before the end of today he will deliver the remaining copies.

“For the soft copy I also reminded him and he sent it to me and I handed it over to the House.” Hon. Jibrin noted that the rumour of missing budget may have been triggered by the delay in the production of more copies of the budget.

“You should realise that we have a new government in place and I think that there is little issue of communication gap and they are trying to get themselves settled. We should be able to excuse them and support the President wherever there is a bit of limitation from his own side.”

•Photo shows National Assembly Complex.

Update news