Senator Plang Speaks On National Assembly Padding 2024 Budget

The Senator representing Plateau Central in the National Assembly, Diket Plang, has said the legislature did not pad the 2024 budget.

Plang, a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, stated this in a chat with journalists on Monday in Jos, the Plateau State capital.

The chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) said that the National Assembly passed a budget of ₦28.77 trillion and not ₦23 trillion as claimed by Senator Abdul Ningi.

The lawmaker stated that President Bola Tinubu, on November 29, 2023, brought before a joint session of the National Assembly a budget of ₦27.2 trillion.

Plang stated that at the request of the executive, the National Assembly added about 1.5 trillion to make it ₦28.77 trillion.

He said: “On the request by the executive, we added the said sum because of critical issues such as food security. Hunger had come in as a result of fuel subsidy removal and devaluation of the naira and there was a need for some measures.

“They were not in the initial budget. There was an urgent need to provide additional money for the security agencies to enable them to purchase weapons. There are classified expenditures like those for the security agencies that are not captured in the printed budget.”

Plang stated that the 10th National Assembly was lucky to be working with President Bola Tinubu, who knows the workings of the legislature, having been a former senator.

He said the executive arm was populated with former lawmakers, including the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and the wife of the president.

“There is a cordial working relationship between the two arms of government because the executive understands lawmaking and knows what the National Assembly wants,” he added.