A drama was witnessed on Thursday during the budget session of the Ministry of Transportation with the House of Representatives joint committee on Land Transport and Aviation.
It all started when the All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers felt that questions being asked by Linus Okorie, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker, at the ministry’s 2016 budget defence was bias.
The session became rowdy and had to be stopped abruptly after the APC members present at the session told the Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, not to respond to any questions.
Okorie had enquired of the Minister, a perceived discrepancies in the budget figures submitted by the ministry and sought clarifications.
Amaechi told the committee that his budget was designed to correspond with the template given to them by the budget office.
The Nation learnt that some members of the committee, especially from the PDP, were at variance with Amaechi’s explanation, asking further probing questions.
They said the documents presented by the minister were below their expectations and that he should present an acceptable and realistic budget.
This prompted APC members at the hearing to ask the minister to cease answering the questions.
However, the situation was brought under control after a while and the minister’s team was told to return at a later date with the appropriate documents to continue the defence of the budget.
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