SAN FRANCISCO, December 18, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari took his ministers by storm on Friday when an emergency Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting meant to consider the 2016 budget proposal was shifted to Monday afternoon.
Ministers who arrived before the 10 am time for the meeting were making their ways into the Council Chambers when members of staff of the Protocol Unit told them that the meeting had been shifted to Monday.
Some of them, who initially doubted the authenticity of the information, made desperate attempts to find out what was responsible for the postponement.
After gathering inside the chambers’ Tea Room to discuss what may be responsible, the ministers were later seen in front of the chambers where more of their colleagues joined them.
But addressing State House Correspondents on the issue, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the postponement was to allow the ministers reflect on some of the corrections made on the 2016 Budget proposal during yesterday’s meeting of the National Economic Council.
Noting that the FEC members were expected to do some “rejigging of figures” and return for the meeting on Monday afternoon, Mohammed clarified that, “The meeting was not cancelled. It was postponed till Monday afternoon”.
His words, “The reason is that you know there was a meeting of the National Economic Council yesterday (Thursday).
“At that meeting, many of the key cabinet members made presentations. There were some fallouts from those presentations that will necessitate going back to the original document that should have been discussed today.
“So, we were given time between now and Monday to go and rejig our figures because when the NEC met, certain issues were thrown up that if they were not resolved, would distort the entire budget proposal. So we will all go back, each ministry will do its rejiging,” Mohammed stated.
Buhari is expected to present the budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday. When asked yesterday whether the President will personally submit the budget to the National Assembly or send it through a minister as was done in the recent past, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma simply responded by promising that that would be made public later.
