The Full transcript of the  Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly matters, Senator Mohammad Abba Aji



''Our purpose of today's briefing is to inform you that the scheduled presentation of the 2010 budget before a joint session of the national assembly will not hold as scheduled. It will now hold at a later date. That is the purpose of the briefing.

''Well it is not holding because we have a policy of non interference with respect to separation of power and you all know that there is a little house keeping left to be concluded that he national assembly between the two chambers, so we are allowing them time to put their house together.

''I have not come here to discuss the problems of the two chambers. I do not want to speculate into that. I am sure that they are capable of resolving their differences and it is not something that is new, this kind of thing happen in bicameral legislatures all around the world, so it is not something that they will not be able to put behind them, so while we confident that they are capable of doing that very soon, we are nonetheless giving them time to do so.

''No the budget, I can tell you categorically because i am member of the presidential budget committee. The budget is ready long time ago, even the president speech is ready, and we do not need excuses such as this, besides if you look at the provision of section 81 of the constitution, it just says that the president shall cause to be prepared and be laid before each chamber of the national assembly, so we do not need excuses such as this. We are ready with the budget.

''Naturally yes, because we have put in our best into this and this budget is a major budget, it is not just an executive budget or congressional budget, it is a budget that has taken all sides, everybody's inputs, this is a truly national budget that is coming. Yes efforts are being made, both the party and our side we are trying to see that they take less time to resolve this.

''There is no refusal. Laying the budget or presentation of the budget before the National Assembly has come by convention. This has been the practice, this has been the tradition, so it is not something that we are refusing to do, it is something that we are allowing time for us to do so.

''No the budget is not coming late. This year's budget has been prepared in good time, if we had presented it as scheduled today, in fact, it would have been presented a month earlier than we presented it last year. This year, we are confident, the executive and the legislatures alike that we will have a budget pass before this year runs out before the implementation will commence in January and we are still on that.

''He is in perfect health, no doubt about that.
 

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