Abuja ,Nigeria — House of Representatives yesterday said it would probe the allegation of corruption rocking the nation's judiciary at the highest level.

The decision came after one of its members, Igo Aguma, raised the issue on the floor and implored other lawmakers not to keep silent on the issue. He said the allegation made by the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami against the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Katsian-Alu was too grave to be ignored.

However, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, quickly interrupted the motion by informing his colleagues that he had received briefing that the House committee on justice had began investigation into the matter.

Bankole urged lawmakers to exercise patience till the conclusion of the investigation of the Committee in charge of the issue before taking any further step on the matter.

He said: "Honorable members, it was only this morning (Thursday) that the chairman of our committee on Justice, Henry Seriake-Dickson, informed me that the committee was already looking into the matter. And I believe the committee is competent enough to handle it. My advice is that we should hold on until the committee concludes its work on the matter."

It will be recalled that Justice Salami had last Tuesday instituted a court action against Katsina-Alu and others, seeking a reversal of the contentious "promotion" because it was out of the norms on such issues in the judiciary.

Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, had drawn the attention of the House to the fact that 32 State Houses of Assembly had passed resolutions in support of an earlier amendment of section 6(5) of the constitution to make the Industrial Court a superior court of records.

The resolutions were immediately adopted by the House without any voice of dissent. Meanwhile, the disparity in the oil price benchmark and revenue projections between the executive and the National Assembly has been fingered as responsible for delay in passage of the 2011 budget.

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon Eseme Eyiboh who said this yesterday in Abuja, also called on some of the 32 revenue generation agencies listed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act to submit their revenue profile to enable the legislature determine the actual deficit in the 2011 budget.

The joint committee of finance of both the Senate and House, he disclosed, is looking into proposals from internally generated revenue to be able to finance the huge deficit built into the budget by the executive.

He said going by the proposal presented by President Goodluck Jonathan, the budget has an in-built deficit of N1.3trillion and capital estimates of N1trillion, a proposal, he said if not rectified may hamper the smooth implementation of the budget.

He said the committee is currently working hard to balance the various estimates to ensure that the budget implementation does not run into troubled waters.

He said: "The proposal that was forwarded to the National Assembly had a deficit of N1.3trillion and capital of N1trillion, which of course you know within the context of simple economics that will not be able to drive what we are looking at. So what we have to do next is to look at the issue of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR); we look at the MDA's, ministries, departments and agencies of government, especially those ones generating revenue.

So we now begin to look at it from the profile, how we will be able to get funds to be able to reduce the issue of deficit and step up that of the capital, with an intention that during implementation, we will be sure that we are not going to start the budget year with a very big body on a tiny foot.

"So that is ongoing and most of the corporations and agencies of government as stipulated in section 31 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which of course the National Assembly when the Presidency presented the budget proposals were not clear that we will need to have a comprehensive income-expenditure profile of these 32 agencies to be able to assist the National Assembly go into the issue of real appropriation.

"As we speak I can tell you that some of the agencies have actually turned in that through the honourable minister for finance, but some have not done that yet and we feel that and we want to believe that they are also thinking in the same line of our thought because our thought is that, between the end of this month and first week of March the budget must be passed, everything being equal. But that is dependent on the level of cooperation we receive from the MDAs.

"We believe that the engagement of the committee with the MDAs is accelerated, the commitment will be so fast and of course the attention will be uncommon, that means that the House as an institution, the House as members are determined to make sure that we leave no stone unturned to give back to Nigerian people what they desire especially in an election year like this, you know the expectations are high, the campaigns are going all over the country and issues are involved, so budget is a very critical issue to be able to attend to the issue of campaign and government policies.

"So we want to assure all Nigerians that the budget is going to be passed expeditiously but with strong content and it is going to reflect the collective aspirations of the Nigerian people", Eyiboh said