AS the dust raised by the speculated withdrawal and adjustment of the 2016 budget raged, it emerged from the Senate and even the Presidency on Tuesday that there was nothing strange or wrong in adjusting some sectoral allocations in the budget proposal.

The case for such adjustments may have been informed by criticisms that trailed the allocations to several Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) in the N6.08 trillion 2016 budget proposal.

Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, who denied knowledge of the withdrawal of the budget document as presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22 last year however, said that the document could be adjusted by either the Presidency or the National Assembly before its passage into law, pointing out that that nothing was wrong in such adjustments.

In an interview at the National Assembly, Ndume stated, “It is impossible to withdraw the budget, it is not a document that you can just write and say you are withdrawing it. The budget proposal that has been laid at a joint session of the National Assembly cannot just be withdrawn like that. However, a budget proposal is not a document that is sacrosanct, you can adjust it and this is why it is before us. During the budget defence, it can be adjusted if need be.”

And in a separate interview on Tuesday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) Senator Ita Enang said, “To my knowledge, the budget as laid by Mr. President on the 22nd of December 2015 is still with the National Assembly and has not be withdrawn. There is always a communication, if that is to be done.

But a budget proposal is not a sensitive thing that cannot be dealt with behind the scene. It can be worked on behind the scene after second reading that the different committees would be processing it, but it has not been read a second time”

In his own response to the controversy, the Chairman of the Senate Committee Works, Senator Kabiru Gaya, said, “I don’t think it has been withdrawn but whatever the case may be, the figure of the entire budget will not change. Mostly it is adjustment of priority projects.

During the media chat recently, the president specifically mentioned some few projects especially some important roads in the country. It is possible that some of the roads may not have been reflected in the budget.

“There is no way if the president speaks on something, that may be part of his campaign promises that he will not try and do it. He also spoke about the railway and that there is a counterpart funding to be put in to the project. So if the figure under the subhead is not defined, then he has the right to readjust it and bring it back to us.”