INSECURITY: 2016 budget stolen from National Assembly

The hard and soft copies of the 2016 budget proposal presented to the joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015 have been declared missing, The upper chamber was scheduled to commence deliberations on the proposed budget on Tuesday. The senators were shocked when Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, revealed that the budget documents had been stolen and could not be found within the prescient of the National Assembly. The Chairman, Senate Committee of Appropriation, Danjuma Goje, subsequently had a mandate to lead a search for the documents and liaise with the Presidency, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, and the National Planning ministry on the matter. The senators it was learnt agreed that the matter should be kept secret, noting that making it public could embarrass the Presidency, the National Assembly and the country. However, some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators have accused the Presidency of colliding with the management of the National Assembly to quietly withdraw the documents after detecting some discrepancies in the budget proposal.