The House of Representatives yesterday witnessed a rowdy session in an attempt to amend the 2013 Appropriation Act which it passed in December 2012 and was signed by President Goodluck Jonathan early this year.
It would, however, be recalled that due to some disagreements between the executive and the legislature, the presidency returned the Act to the National Assembly for amendment, an action that has not gone down well with the leadership and members of the House of Representatives.
Shortly after the majority leader of the House, Hon. Mulikat Akande-Adeola read the short title of the Bill which is seeking to authorize the issue from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation the total sum of N4, 987,382,196,690 only; Hon. Yakubu Dogara raised a point of order reminding members that by provisions of section 81 of the Constitution, the Appropriation Act cannot be amended.
Section 81(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended stipulates that the President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each House of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the Federation for the following financial year while section 81(4) stipulates that if in respect of any financial year it is found that the amount appropriated by the Appropriation Act for any purpose is insufficient, or a need has arisen for expenditure for a purpose for which no amount has been appropriated by the Act, a supplementary estimate showing the sums required shall be laid before each House of the National Assembly and the heads of any such expenditure shall be included in a Supplementary Appropriation Bill.
Honourable Yakubu Dogara therefore argued that since the 2013 Appropriation Act did not come as a Supplementary Bill, it can only receive the attention of members if the short title is changed to either 2013 Appropriation Bill 2 or an amendment to the original Bill before it became an Act.
Trouble started when the Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal who presided over Wednesdays’ plenary called on the deputy majority leader, Hon. Leo Ogor to respond to the point of order raised by Hon. Yakubu Dogara as members shouted no, no, on top of their voices.
Despite efforts by the Speaker to calm members down by pleading with them to allow Leo Ogor make his contribution and have their way at the end of the day, they continued to shout on top of their voices which led to a temporary suspension of plenary for about 10 minutes.
Sensing that the situation may degenerate into fisticuffs, the Speaker quickly said: “there are provisions on how to amend Bills in this House, the Bill in question is not yet a final document, our rule is to send it to small group of members to look at it and report back to us, I therefore refer this Bill to the Committees on Rules and Business, Justice and Judiciary to look into it and report back.”
No time frame was given to the three committees to report back to the House.