Tambuwal to Jonathan: Your budget is late

Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Waziri Tambuwal yesterday lamented the 'late' presentation of the 2012 budget estimate by President Goodluck Jonathan.Delivering votes of thanks on behalf of the legislature shortly after the President presented the budget, Tambuwal said, 'the budget proposal is again coming rather late in the day'.Since the return to civilian rule the budget was presented in December instead of the usual October or November.Tambuwal said it was time to 'move with a feeling of a new spirit to remove the annual budget presentation from the realm of sheer rhetoric to one of a comprehensive presentation of a workable document.'He however assured that the National Assembly shall do their best to complete work on the budget within reasonable time so that implementation can start early.'We hope that this time around, we shall break the jinx of low budget implementation. The truth is there is no better signal that a government is alive to its responsibility than through its strict adherence to its own budget proposal,' Tambuwal said.The Speaker also lamented the huge number of uncompleted and abandoned projects and programmes in the country which he said 'boggles the mind and it is the single most obvious sign of shoddy government implementation of the national budget over the years. Let me emphasize that selective budget implementation has no place in our constitution and the legislature shall not abdicate its responsibility in ensuring full budget implementation through the instrumentality of oversight.
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