The deepening rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly, particularly the House of Representatives, over alleged poor implementation of the 2012 budget, may imperil the 2013 budget.

Jonathan had on Wednesday presented N4.9tn budget to a joint-session of the parliament, a move aimed at ending the debilitating ritual of late passage.

But investigations on Friday indicated there might be no budget for 2013 if members of the House carried out their threat not to touch the document, until a satisfactory implementation of the 2012 budget was achieved.

A Principal Officer of the House and leader of the opposition, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, confirmed the underground moves to SUNDAY PUNCH.

Similarly, a committee chairman said, “The Executive cannot continue to take us for a ride; we are the representatives of the Nigerian people, we feel their pulse more than anyone else.

“Visit the various states, people are suffering because most of the capital projects in the 2012 budget have not been implemented.

“In many of the cases, the contracts have not even been awarded; this year is one of the worst and we have never had it this bad. We have to thrash all this out.”

Also, such hard stance has echoed in the Senate as its Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Ganiyu Solomon, said the Senate would demand from Ministries, Departments and Agencies, proof of full implementation of the 2012 budget before approving the allocations of the 2013 budget.

He told one of our correspondents in Abuja that, “The MDAs will have to justify what they were given in 2012 if they intend to get further allocation in next year’s budget. That is where we are going to wait for them.”

The senator maintained that it made no sense if figures were announced as budget and no development was achieved.

It was learnt that opposition party members in particular were mobilising lawmakers across board to reject the budget.

via Punch