The Presidency has completed plans to cut down the National Assembly budget from N120bn to N90bn, as the presidency articulates the 2016 zero based budgeting.
The news of the budget slash filtered into the National Assembly hours after President Muhammadu Buhari hosted Senators at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday.
Sources at the Presidency and the National Assembly on Saturday confirmed the slash of the budget to our correspondent.
The reported slash has thrown the lawmakers off guard and the whole assembly into confusion.
The assembly budget usually covers the salaries and allowances of the 109 Senators and 360 House of Representatives members as well as the budget of the National Assembly Commission, National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) and the Public Complaints Commission (PCP).
It was gathered that the Presidency would soon transmit the proposed 2016 budget to the assembly.
A source said the budget was being delayed because of the downward trend of the price of crude oil at the international market.
“The slash of the budget of the National Assembly would be in the proposed 2016 budget. The Presidency is yet to send the budget because of the crude oil price. They are contemplating on the benchmark of the crude oil to be used in the budget. You know a barrel of the crude oil is around $38. It was over $100 sometimes ago,” a source close to the Presidency said.
If the proposed slash sails through, it would be the second time that the National Assembly budget would be cut in recent time.
Speaking to our correspondent, a principal officer of the Senate who pledged anonymity said the news of the budget got to them informally two days ago.
“We got the hint of the slash two days ago but it has not been communicated to us officially. I was told that they have cut N30bn from our budget,” the principal officer said.
A second term Senator from the North-East noted that there is a lot of corruption the National Assembly our budget. “There is massive corruption in our budget and this is being perpetrated by the leadership of the National Assembly. Nobody is talking because we only carry out oversight on others and nobody is looking at our own activities, “ he said.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mamman Ousman, said a group of experts should be engaged to look into the budget before the slash.
“It is desirable that a group of experts that are unbiased are engaged to make deep rooted reflection on the budget before a decision would be taken on it. While it is desirable for us to cut our cost to meet our peculiar purposes, I will not encourage any rush, “he said.
Calls put to the spokesperson of the Senate, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, yielded no result as he did not pick his but the Senate President weeks ago while featuring on a private television station said henceforth the National Assembly budget would be made public.
Saraki, who is also the Chairman of the National Assembly, said every expenditure and receipt would be broken down into relevant budget heads for easy tracking.
“You will see what goes to the Senate, what goes to the House of Reps, you are going to see what goes to management, what goes to Legislative Institute, we are going to make all these open and clear. That is part of the openness we promised”, he said.
How National Assembly Budget skyrocketed
The budget of the National Assembly, according to records skyrocketed under tenure of the immediate past Senate President, Senator David Mark.
It was under Mark that the budget breakdown that used to be on the National Budget was removed and it was put in the first line charge in 2010. Now only the sum total is included in the National Budget.
The budget that was N23.347bn in 2003 rose to about N32.229bn in 2004 and to N55.422bn in 2005.
Records showed that it dropped to N39.810bn in 2006, the allocations returned to its upward swing in 2007 under Mark.
The National Assembly’s budget rose from N66.488bn in 2007 to N104.825bn in 2008 and dropped to N96.052 billion in 2009.
But by 2010 it went to its peak of about N154.2 billion until this year, it has been floating around N150bn. It was reduced to N120bn this year.
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