Despite protests, national assembly to gulp N125bn

Despite protests and calls for the reduction of the humongous national assembly budget, the legislature has had its way.

On May 11, the national assembly passed the 2017 budget of N7.44trn, allocating N125bn to itself.

The amount is larger than that of 2016 which was N115bn. Nigerians peeved by the action asked the legislature to thin its budget in view of the present economic reality of the country. Some citizens also suggested to the presidency to revise the passed budget.

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, even called on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo not to assent to the budget because the national assembly allocating a prodigious amount of money to itself was illegal.

Also, BudgIT and Enough is Enough – both civic organisations – held a forum on the legislature budget, where most of the participants suggested that the present amount be slashed by N73bn. According to the organisations, the national assembly will do well on a budget of N52bn.

But on Monday, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo signed the budget after a long period of delay without revisions.  Although, only the legislature has the power of appropriation, the executive has the prerogative to seek revision to allocations on items it is not comfortable with.

President Muhammadu Buhari made some revisions in the 2016 budget even though the entire process was enmeshed in controversy.

A view of the national assembly budget shows the legislature will spend N6.4bn on cars in 2017 after splashing billions of naira on them in 2016.

While the senate will spend N2.6bn on automobiles, the house will do the same at the cost of N3.8bn.

When this is compared with previous spends on cars, the amount beggars belief – it is a far cry from last year’s amount which was about N4.7bn.

In February 2016, the management of the national assembly took delivery of 10 princely cars for the senate president at the cost of about N330m. This was when the country was in the throes of recession.

And in November of the same year, the house of representatives took delivery of some Peugeot 508 series at the cost of about N3.6bn for its members.

Again, federal lawmakers will spend N235m on newspapers alone. And while the senate will spend N424m on photocopying machines and other office equipment, the house will spend N353m on the same.

Also, the upper legislative chamber will spend N293m on the printing of non-security document and N247m on medical supplies while the lower legislative chamber will spend N686m on printing and N503m on medical supplies.

For security services, the senate will spend N449m while the house has N960m for the same purpose.

The legislators in the upper legislative chamber will spend N578m on fuel and lubricants while those in the lower chamber will spend N1.6bn on the same.

For refreshments and meals senators will spend N409m; for publicity and advertisement N1.4 billion, while their counterparts in the house will gulp N913m for the same items.

Contingency and programme activities for the senate will take N1.3bn and N2.6 billion respectively, while the same items will take N890m and N3.5bn for the house.