THE FUNCTIONS OF THE LEGISLATORS AND THE ISSUE OF PADDING

            As commentators continue to express divergent views on the appropriation process especially concerning which arm of government has the power to allocate resources to projects in the budget, there are questions yet to be answers. Some of the commentators argued that there is nothing like padding in the legislative parlance in the budgeting process, hence, nobody could be accused of committing any crime that is not known to law. They planted out that based on the constitutional provision and other relevant rules guiding the activities of the house, the legislature has the right to tinker with budget estimates presented by the executive arm. According to this school of thought, the legislature all over the world has three primary functions; to regulate and oversee the external affairs of the country as seen in the approval of ambassadors, make for the good of the country and approve expenditures, in Nigeria, the legislature draws its powers from section80.

1.                of 1999 constitution, as amended which states thus (1) all revenues or other moneys raised or received by the federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this constitution or any of the national assembly into any other public are consolidated revenue fund of a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one consolidated revenue fund of the federation.

2.                No money shall be withdrawn from the considated revenue funds  of the federation except to meet expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this constitution or where the issue of chose money has been authorized by an appropriate act, supplementary appropriation act or an act passed in pursuance of  section 81 of this constitution.

3.                No money shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the federation, other than the consolidated revenue fund of the federation, unless the issues of those moneys has been authorized by an act of the national assembly. 81 (1) the president shall cause to be prepared and laid before each house of the national assembly at anytime in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the federation of the next following financial year. It shall be noted that while working on the budget estimates, presented by the executive arm, the lawmakers reserve the power to alter such proposals as they deem fit. Even Jibrin did not say that what the house did was unconstitutional: he only said the insertions were “senseless”