The Senate has dispelled insinuations that it is involved in the inflation of figures in the 2013 budget, as it has yet to begin proper work on it.

The Senate spokesman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said the National Assembly had yet to make any input into the budget, let alone raising the figure of any of the items.

A report in a national daily on Monday had quoted officials of the Ministry of Finance as saying that the National Assembly was involved in the jacking up of figures of certain items in its budget.

The legislature received N150bn as its allocation under statutory transfers because it now operates its allocation through the first line charge.

Abaribe said the allegation of inflation of the budgeted sum suggested ignorance of the process of budget preparation and passage.

He said, “The statement that we inflated the figures of the budget is a product of ignorance of the process of budget preparation. We did not prepare the budget. We were not involved. The figures were the ones submitted by the Executive and our committees have yet to start work on it.

“What we have only done is to debate the general principles of the budget and we referred it to the relevant committees before we went on recess. So, when did we inflate the figures?”

Abaribe argued that if the National Assembly had been involved in the preparation of the budget, there would not have been any controversy over what should be the benchmark oil price and other assumptions of the budget.

According to him, certain persons in the Executive are speaking out to give the impression that there is a clash between the two arms of government.

via Punch