Two years
after it made the promise, the National
Assembly yesterday unveiled the details of its expected 2017 expenditure.
Similarly,
the National Assembly increased its budget from N115billion to N125billion. The
proposal submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari, had N115billion budgeted for
the assembly.
In 2016,
N115billion was also budgeted for the National Assembly.
According to
the breakdown of the budget made available by the Senate spokesman, Abdullahi
Sabi, the management of both chambers would get N14.9billion.
The Senate
was to gulp N31.3 billion, while the House of Representatives was expected to
expend N49.05 billion. A total of N1.856 billion would be spent on personal
cost of 109 senators. Each senator would earn about N17,03,206 million per
annum.
The House of
Representatives on the other hand earmarked N4.923 billion on personal cost of
members. Members would earn about N13,677,064 million each per year.
Senators
were expected to spend N2.759 billion on purchase of new vehicles, while
members of the House of Representatives would spend N3.845 on the same item.
The
breakdown did not include overhead and capital expenditures of lawmakers.
The National
Assembly Service Commission (NASC) would get N2.415billion. In the same vein,
legislative aides would receive N9.602 billion.
The Public
Accounts Committee of the Senate would get N118.9 million, while its House of
Representatives counterpart would get N142.764. General Services Department of
the National Assembly would spend N12.584 billion.
National
Assembly Legislative Institute would receive N4.373 billion and Service Wide
Vote stood at N391.396.
It was the
first time since the inauguration of the 8th Senate, that the leadership of the
National Assembly would make its budget public.
Senate
President Bukola Saraki had in 2015, promised to make the details of the
assembly budget public.
However, new
facts emerged yesterday why the passage of the 2017 Appropriation Bill was
delayed, particularly by the Senate.
Daily Sun
gathered that angry lawmakers, who felt shortchanged in the allocation and
distribution of constituency projects, vowed to scuttle the passage of the
budget, if their interest were not accommodated.
It was
learnt that the Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriations, Danjuma Goje,
declined to accommodate requests from his colleagues, who besieged his office
to ensure that the interests of their senatorial districts were adequately
captured in the budget.
It was also
learnt that while Goje reportedly declined to accommodate requests from his
colleagues, principal officers of the Senate, however, got juicy allocations to
cater for their constituency projects in the budget.
Angered by
the discrepancies, the aggrieved lawmakers, vowed to fight until the alleged
lopsidedness in the allocation of projects was corrected by the Goje-led
committee.
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