What NASS and FEC are planning to correct the 2016

There are indications that the National Assembly and Federal Executive Council (FEC) may have sealed a secret deal to correct the anomalies associated with the N6.077 trillion 2016 budget.
The Guardian reports that under the arrangement, ministers dissatisfied with the distribution of figures within their ministries are to send the distributions as they prefer them without exceeding the amounts allocated to the various ministries, departments, and agencies under them, to the National Assembly. According to an anonymous source, the executive arm may no longer have to withdraw the budget and re-write it. READ ALSO: 2016 budget: Ahmed Adamu on how not to borrow The source said: “Since the power of appropriation actually lies with the National Assembly after it receives the Appropriation Bill from the president, what has been agreed on is that the ministers will bring the figures they proposed for their various sub-heads and the lawmakers will appropriate duly without shifting grounds too far from the zero budgeting thrust of the new administration.” The source noted that the arrangement will not change the total figure for the budget but the distribution within various sub-heads will change to satisfy the ministers who have complained that their figures were jumbled up and did not represent what they proposed. Recall the at the weekend, Senate leader, Ali Ndume disclosed that the leadership of the National Assembly met with ministers to iron out grey areas and make corrections to the contentious areas. Also, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, the minister of Budget and National Planning had said they were working at resolving the issues surrounding the budget. The 2016 budget has a number of discrepancies. Last week for instance, Senate Committee on Education discovered N10 billion tucked into the education budget. READ ALSO: Falana to drag FG to court over $3.5 billion loan Also, some ministers have been complaining about how their budgets were messed up. Last week Monday, Health Minister, Prof. Isaac Adewole told senators that the provisions of the budget before the National Assembly were in contrast with the priorities of the health sector as contained in the original budget it prepared. Last Wednesday, Lai Mohammed, the minister of Information and Culture,  joined the list of ministers who disputed the figures credited to their ministries. He disowned a budgetary allocation of N398 million as being part of the budget estimates by his ministry for purchase of computers. As a result of the many errors, the two arms of the National Assembly, the Senate and House of Assembly said the 2016 budget could not be passed on February 25 as earlier promised.naij