The government has spent N150 billion yearly since 2011 to
run the National Assembly. That will continue till 2016. Nigerian
federal lawmakers will retain a controversial yearly budget of N150
billion for at least two more years according to the government’s
spending outlay, in yet another indication the government is less
bothered about curtailing a lavish habit that has angered many
Nigerians, who have called for cuts.
The
vote, which has sparked outcry since its first approval in 2011, will
remain in place as the cost of running the Nigerian National Assembly,
for 2015 and 2016, according to the government’s Medium Term Expenditure
Framework, despite a declining economic fortune that has already forced
a cut in total national budget from N4.9 trillion to N4.6 trillion in
2014.
The Nigerian assembly is regarded as one of the world’s most
expensive when measured against the standard of living of an average
Nigerian, and the government’s total revenue and spending.
The
N150 billion annual spending was three percent of the entire federal
budget in 2013, while the United States, for instance, spent only 0.17
percent of its total budget to run its Congress the same year.
Lawmakers
have seized on the claim of a “meagre three percent” to argue how the
allocation is nothing extraordinary, but have failed to defend the tens
of millions of naira it translates to per senator or member of the House
of Representatives, when more than 100 million Nigerians live on less
than a dollar per day.
“The N150 billion budgeted to the National
Assembly …is only 3% of this year’s budget and not as big as it has been
negatively publicised,” Senate spokesperson, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said
last September during a protest march to the National Assembly by an
anti-corruption coalition which demanded details of how the money was
spent.
The Medium Term Expenditure document, which forms the
groundwork for government’s budgets annually, says despite a reduction
in national budget this year, the allocation for the lawmakers will
remain the same for 2014, 2015 and 2016- making it N1.2 trillion in six
years.
The document was approved by the Senate and the House of
Representatives in late 2013, but somehow the proposal appeared to have
missed public attention. “That should not be allowed to happen,” said
Olarenwaju Suraj, a leader of the coalition of activists which held a
protest to the assembly in September. “Nigerians should ask for
transparency and for a budget meant for development not one for sharing
to the boys.”
The coalition, The Civil Society Network Against
Corruption, and the Enough is Enough Nigeria, has since filed a Freedom
of Information application, requesting details of how the N150 billion
was used.
The group has yet to receive a response, and is
considering going to court, Mr. Suraj said. Hidden details of N150
billion Funding for the National Assembly and its allied institutions
first hit N150 billion in 2011 after the lawmakers unilaterally reviewed
its annual budget upward, and authorized its funding direct from
government’s treasury- a privilege that has allowed the legislature to
conceal its spending details from the public.
The vote has
remained the same yearly despite a groundswell of public anger and calls
for review. “Beyond the amount, the real issue is that it is
unacceptable for a body that should provide oversight functions over the
budgets and expenditures of MDAs, to refuse to make its accounts
public,” said Yemi Adamolekun of the Enough is Enough group.
In
the MTEF document, the National Assembly is listed alongside the
National Judicial Council, Universal Basic Education, National Human
Rights Commission and Independent National Electoral Commission- all
with the privilege of direct funding from the treasury, and undisclosed
budget details.
But while the legislature’s budgets and the other
institutions remain the same between 2013 and 2016, the budget for UBE,
which deals with basic education, will decline from N76.2 billion to
N67.7 billion between 2013 and 2014; before climbing nominally to N71. 1
billion and N72. 4 billion in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
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