Last Thursday’s raid by police at the residence of Senator Danjuma Goje may delay the passage of the 2017 budget, a source has disclosed.
According to new information pertaining to the raid, documents including 18 files containing details of the budget estimates were taken away by the police.
Goje, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, is being investigated for alleged fraud while he was governor of Gombe State from 2003 to 2011.
Reports indicate that the senator has spent lots of hours working on the documents in order to bring it to completion.
“In order to get full attention, he and many other members of the committee don’t just work in the office but even in their private offices to get the job done as quickly as possible
“But since this raid yesterday, he was not able to do anything, and you can say the work regarding the budget as far as the Senate is concerned has stopped,” the source said.
The proposed budget, estimated at N7.29 trillion, was initially scheduled to be passed by the end of the first quarter of 2017. The legislators at the National Assembly, however, slated the deadline for passage until May 5 as some inconsistencies were found in the first draft.
The police are said to be conducting further investigation following Thursday’s raid and said that a preliminary report might be ready on Monday April 24.
