At the expiation of a month, the National Assembly can actually sign the budget according to the constitution, reports confirm. This as Nigeria’s embark on #OccupyNASS protests to remove Nigeria’s senate. Quoting the Vanguard:
A meeting between the Presidency and the National Assembly leadership, expected to hold at the weekend to address the issues of concern, did not hold, sources disclosed.
The section states thus:
“Where the President, within 30 days after the presentation of the bill to him, fails to signify his assent or where he withholds assent, then the bill shall again be presented to the National Assembly sitting at a joint meeting, and if passed by two-thirds majority of members of both houses at such joint meeting, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required.”
Upon the constitutional provision, multiple sources in the National Assembly told Vanguard that the current pressures on the National Assembly to rewrite the budget to include some critical projects left out in the appropriation bill as passed could not hold.
Vanguard learned that the National Assembly leaders were expected to, at the meeting, convey the point to the President that the only option opened to him was to sign the budget and forward an amendment bill. “There is no provision in the constitution that would allow us to incorporate those projects again,” a very senior legislator told Vanguard. It was also learned that calls on the President to send a supplementary budget would also not be tenable.
“A supplementary budget is only proposed when there is a shortfall in revenue for a project, but what is workable in this case is for the President to sign the budget as sent to him and then send an amendment bill to the 2016 Appropriation Bill to address areas of concern to him,” a legislator familiar with the process told Vanguard. “You can see that there are no other legal options available to get out of this situation,” the source disclosed.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/04/no-way-budget-crisis-deadline-expires/
