At Last, Yar’Adua Signs 2009 Supplementary Budget

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu yesterday said that President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has signed the N353.60 billion 2009 Supplementary budget into law. THISDAY had exclusively reported yesterday that the President would assent to the bill in Saudi Arabia. The President is currently recuperating from a heart condition at the King Faisal Specialist and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The signing of the budget has prevented a veto override (as prescribed in Section 59(4) of the 1999 Constitution) that would have taken place if the document was not signed within 30 days of transmission to him for assent. The House of Represen-tatives had passed the Supple-mentary Appropriation bill on November 18 while the Senate concurred on November 24. Acting Clerk of the National Assembly, Prince Oluyemi Ogunyomi, had transmitted a clean copy of the bill to the Presidency on November 29. But amid the confusion over the budget, December 8 and 10 were bandied around as the transmission dates of the clean copy of the budget.

If the budget had not been signed within 30 days from the date of its transmission to the Presidency for his assent, the National Assembly would have passed the document into law through two-thirds of both chambers in a joint meeting. The budget has become law and extended the capital portion of the N3.1 trillion 2009 main budget as well as the recurrent and capital expenditures of the 2009 Supplementary budget until March 2010, pending the consideration and passage of the N4.079 trillion 2010 budget. Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu, told THISDAY that “the President has signed the budget,” adding, “his Principal Secretary, Mr. David Edevbie, is on his way back to Abuja.

” Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze, in a chat with THISDAY yesterday night stated: “What other way is the Senate to relate with this development except to say that we have beaten the deadline and the president has signed the budget into law.” Eze added, “We now wait for the implementation of the Supplementary budget.” President Yar’Adua has been out of the country for more than 30 days because of poor health. He is currently receiving treatment for acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane around the heart.

His absence has generated a lot of controversy with questions being asked why he did not write a letter to the National Assembly before proceeding on medical vacation. The letter would have allowed the Vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan, to take over as acting president. The failure to follow the constitution on the issue of handover has resulted in a situation where the Supplementary budget had to be flown to a foreign land for the President’s signature. Yar’Adua­ has been unable to write the letter to the National Assembly. But the Senate now claims the same president has signed the supplementary budget.