By Joe Effiong and Gabriel Efo, Uyo

THE 2016 Appropriation Act signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, May 6, will run until May 2017.

Buhari’s Senior Spe­cial Assistant on Nation­al Assembly (Senate), Ita Enang, disclosed this yesterday, in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

“The Act provides that the budget takes effect­from the date of assent by the president and runs a full course of 12 months.

“So, as the president assented to this budget on May 6, it will expire on May 6, 2017. This is an ingenious introduc­tion by the National As­sembly to ensure that there is full implementa­tion of the budget,” En­ang, a former lawmaker who chaired the Senate Committee on Rules and Business in the Seventh Senate said.

Yesterday, Enang also thanked Nigerians for their patience during the budget crisis, and praised the Senate and the House of Represen­tatives members whom he said demonstrated bi-partisanship during the controversy that trailed the exclusion of the La­gos-Calabar rail project from the budget.

The special assistant to the president on na­tional assembly matters (senate), said the Fed­eral Government would execute 100 percent of the 2016 budget before the 2017 fiscal year.

Enang explained that implementing the budget to the full has become imperative to ensure that the change agenda of the present administration would be delivered.

Commenting on his relationship with the former governor of Akwa Ibom State and senate minority leader, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, Enang said their rela­tionship with him as well as that of the other senators from the state was cordial, since they are all working for the success of the present administration.

“That was Governor Godswill Akpabio as governor of Akwa Ibom State. Now I am work­ing with all the sena­tors including Godswill Akpabio as minority leader and other sena­tors as senators from Akwa Ibom State, who are working together to support Mr President. I have taken their report that they are all working to support Mr President.

“Of course, we all ac­cept that hunger has no political party neither does it have religion; unemployment knows no political party. So we work together to agree on how to deliver the change agenda of the president. He is the leader of the minor­ity party of the senate and it is my job to cre­ate a good relationship between the president and all the senators,” he noted.

He, however called on Akwa Ibom State gover­nor, Mr Udom Emman­uel, to restructure the entire petroleum man­agement and distribu­tion chain in the state, saying that the fuel cri­sis hitting the state is an internal issue and not from the Federal Gov­ernment.

He urged the people to endeavor to find out what the petrol situa­tion is like in other south southern and south east­ern states, saying they would be marveled at the fact that what is ob­tainable in those states is not what the are suf­fering in the state.

“The question of dis­tribution of petroleum products is and ought to be the responsibility of the Federal Government and it is done well but when it comes into the borders of Akwa Ibom State, other volunteers jump in and cause a hitch for which the peo­ple suffer,” he noted.