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No room for padding in 2017 budget –Senate

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The Senate, on Tuesday, revealed that the Red Chamber will not tolerate any padding of the 2017 budget and warned that such moves will not be allowed by lawmakers.

Deputy Leader of the Senate, Senator Bala Na’Allah, made the disclosure when the Rector and officials of the Nigerian Aviation College of Technology, appeared before the Senate Committee on Aviation to defend the agency’s 2017 budget.

Senator Na’Allah who serves as the vice chairman of the committee, said anything not captured in the original 2017 budget document submitted to the National Assembly should be resubmitted in the supplementary budget of the Federal Government.

He said: “We will not add anything that was not added in the original budget. If you want to increase the budgetary allocation, you have to send a supplementary budget. If we do that, you will accuse us of budget padding. We will not allow it.

“We want to ensure that public money is spend judiciously. We want to be sure that whatever we are approving for anything is what will buy the same thing. We have looked at your budget. We will do everything possible to give you what you want.

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“We will also take out some money which we think you do not need. Since you are refleeting, you must tell us what your intentions are and what you intend to do with the old ones. Next week Thursday, we are going to the aviation college to see the state of the runway to see what is happening there.”

A member of the committee, Senator Ben Murray Bruce, while speaking, revealed that he will soon sponsor a bill to privatize the aviation sector. He said the current state of major airports in the country was of serious concerns to him.

He noted: “When I took over NTA, we had equipments which were paid for over ten years and were left in Germany. In Nigeria, nobody maintains anything. We leave everything to chance in Nigeria here. Murtala Airport is a disaster today.

“The air conditioners are not working. Nothing is working there. The track record of aviation in Nigeria is so bad. The aviation industry generates N100 billion every year in Nigeria in cash. I think the aviation sector should be privatized.

“I will sponsor a motion and a bill on the privatization of the entire aviation sector. We need to run it like a business and make money. Government has no business giving money to the aviation sector for them to function well.”

Capt. Abdusalami Mohammed, Rector of Nigerian Aviation College of Technology, Zaria, could not respond to some of the questions posed to him by the Senators
By Ehisuan Odia….

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