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afrol News, 20 June - The Nigerian Senate has initiated an investigation into budget over-spending by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo. There are also allegations of "lack of transparency" and possible corruption. While Obasanjo rejects the allegations, a parliamentary report talks of a "virtual slide into financial anarchy". The Nigerian Senate - the upper house of Parliament - claims the federal government has already overspent on this year's budget. The government in 2001 exceeded its budget by naira 221 billion representing 11.0 percent of GDP for that year, it is claimed. A Senate Committee was appointed to examine the government's revenues and expenditure to determine whether the allegations are right. Several theories are launched to explain the reasons for the missing billion; the se include corruption, embezzlement and mismanagement. The Senate Committee was to look into this. If the President is involved, impeachment proceedings could become the result. Meanwhile, President Obasanjo has strongly denied that his government had overspent its recurrent budget. On the contrary, there was an unspent balance of naira 80.669 million for the year 2000, the presidential office said in a statement. Senator Idris Abubakar - who had led the motion to discuss public finances in Senate - is however still eager to go on with the studies into the evidence of "misconduct" he claims to have. He however does not want to emphasise on the possibilities of impeachment proceedings. A possible impeachment had been his original focus when presenting the motion, "in the event of persistence in breaches of the constitution." The motion moved earlier this week by Abubakar had been seeking a "debate of the neglect, failure and refusal by the federal government to implement appropriation acts duly passed and assented to by the President, since the inception of this democratic dispensation." Sources: Based on Nigerian govt,
press reports and afrol archives
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