Osinbajo presides as FEC scrutinises 2016 Budget

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday presided over an extra ordinary emergency Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting to scrutinise the detailed 2016 budget.

The development confirmed The Guardian’s report yesterday that he (Osinabjo) would lead ministers and top level officials from the ministries, departments and agencies to look at the details of the budget before presidential assent.

The exercise, which started barely 24 hours after the details of the budget was submitted to the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, who received it on behalf of the President on Thursday, is expected to last a few days according to Presidency sources.

A Presidency source told The Guardian yesterday that the meeting was called at the instance of the President to fast-track the scrutiny of the budget rather than sending it to the ministries, which might take more time.

The meeting, which commenced at exactly 11.05a.m at the Council Chambers in the Presidential Villa, had in attendance the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), Babachir Lawal; the National Security Adviser, Maj-Gen. Mohammed Babagana Monguno and virtually all the ministers who were in company of their permanent secretaries.

However, about hours into the meeting, the ministers started coming out presumably for a lunch break. Thereafter, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, told State House correspondents that the meeting would resume afterwards.

He stated that the meeting would upon resumption continue discussing the budget details, but did not indicate of when the task would be concluded.

Mohammed simply said: “We received the details of the 2016 budget from the National Assembly yesterday and an extra-ordinary Federal Executive Council meeting was called this morning to avail every minister an opportunity to look at the details of the budget and see how it affects each of the ministries.

“At this point, it is still work in progress. We have broken up to resume later in the afternoon. We will come out with a statement later.”
However, observations showed that the meeting did not reconvene as the minister had promised.