Rep: N16bn for managing n’assembly not enough — it should have been doubled

Yunusa Abubakar, lawmaker and member of the house committee on house services, says the amount of money allocated to the national assembly as running costs should have been doubled.

Abubakar said this in an interview with Channels Television on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Benjamin Kalu said the house of representatives is broke and its “poor budget is a disservice to Nigerians”.

While speaking on Tuesday however, Abubakar said the house is not broke but that funds allocated to parliament are grossly inadequate.

“The assembly is not broke as such, but when you talk about inadequacy, the amount allocated to the national assembly is somewhat grossly inadequate to run the structure that exists in the assembly,” he said.

“It is obvious the N16 billion naira allocated to the national assembly management is not enough. According to the bureaucracy ( the national assembly administration), to maintain our chamber alone, they are spending over N40 million monthly,” he said.

When asked how much would be enough for the national assembly management, he said, “going by our need assessment, the amount should have been doubled”.

“Everybody knows that we do live coverage and we are charged how many millions for it. Running it is very costly.

“What is taking the chunk of the money is how to conduct the day to day business of the legislative arm of government.”