Senators suspect presidency behind ‘missing’ 2016 budget documents

Some Nigerian senators said Wednesday they are suspicious the Nigerian presidency is behind the sudden disappearance of the 2016 budget submitted to the National Assembly.

The lawmakers said the intelligence they had so far gathered suggested that the presidency discreetly withdrew the documents to enable it to make some adjustments to it.

The president had presented the budget to a joint session of the legislature in December.

The senators said the presidency had in the past two weeks been combing through the budgets with a view to removing provisions that had so far exposed the administration to ridicule.

“The executive have now started delivering fresh copies of the budget documents to the National Assembly,” one of the senators said.