President Muhammadu Buhari’s avowed determination to punish culprits who smuggled foreign items into the 2016 Budget and who caused his administration both national and international embarrassment has failed to materialize, as several of the indicted officials are back to work.

Investigation by Economic Confidential magazine indicates that the officials who were sanctioned by their deployment outside Federal Ministry of Finance have since resumed duties in the same ministry without the highly publicised punishment the President promised while speaking to Nigerians resident in Saudi Arabia.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in February this year while speaking in Saudi Arabia threatened to punish all those who were involved in the padding of the budget.

Apart from the removal of Director General of Budget Office and deployment of several directors and senior officials from the ministry, President Buhari also merged the Budget Office with the Ministry of Planning.

About 15 senior officials from other ministries and departments were posted to the Budget Office to replace the sanctioned officials that were recalled to the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.

Other ministries involved in the budget padding saga include but are not limited to Finance, Education, Health, Agriculture and Rural Development, Trade and Investment, as well as Interior.

President Buhari had vowed that all those involved in the padding of the 2016 National Budget, which led to the discrepancies in the document, would face the most severe punishment.

He said the alterations, which he described as embarrassing and disappointing, made the document, which was debated in the National Assembly, completely different from what was prepared by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

A statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had quoted the President as spitting fire over the issue while addressing the Nigerian community in in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Buhari was said to have condemned the distortion of the budget proposals by those he called entrenched interests. He stated that since he had been holding public offices, he had never heard about budget padding before the current incident.

He regretted that the unauthorised alterations had completely changed the document from the one he presented to the National Assembly.

The President, however, gave the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, a clean bill of health, saying he did a good job.

Buhari had said: “The culprits will not go unpunished. I have been a military governor, petroleum minister, military Head of State and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund.

“Never had I heard the words budget padding. Our Minister of Budget and National Planning did a great job with his team.

“The minister became almost half his size during the time, working night and day to get the budget ready, only for some people to pad it.

“What he gave us was not what was finally being debated. It is very embarrassing and disappointing. We will not allow those who did it to go unpunished.”

•Adapted from a report by Economic Confidential. Photo shows President Buhari.

Update news