President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday signed the 2021 Appropriation Bill into law, overlooking the increase in the budget, particularly in the National Assembly’s allocation.
The assent comes 10 days after the lawmakers approved the budget.
The legislature had approved a budget of N13.6 trillion against the N13.08 trillion proposed by the president. Over N505 billion was added to the proposal and about a quarter of the budget will be funded by loans, indicating the income challenges the government faces.
The budget has a total capital expenditure of N4.1trillion, statutory transfers of N496 billion, and recurrent expenditure of N5.6 trillion.
Over N6 billion increase for NASS
A total of N134 billion was budgeted for the National Assembly for 2021 out of the N496 billion allocated for statutory transfers.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Legislature increased its budget and made an attempt to publish details of its allocations.
About N6 billion was added to the N128 billion proposed by President Buhari. This is also despite the fact that the president had initially increased the National Assembly’s budget from N125 billion in previous years, to N128 billion for 2021.
There has been a public outcry over the huge salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly over the years.
The pay packages of lawmakers and other public office holders have been an issue of serious concern among Nigerians.
Until 2015, the annual allocations to the National Assembly had been N150 billion and between 2015 till date, the budget has been between N125 billion and now N134 billion.
Details of these allocations which include the salaries and allowances as well as other perks, have remained a secret, except for 2017 when the former senate president, Bukola Saraki, published a breakdown of the Legislature’s budget but left out the line items.
Details of the lawmakers’ earnings were, however, disclosed by an ex-senator, Shehu Sani, in 2018, this paper also reported. He revealed that senators received N13.5 million monthly outside their N700,000 monthly consolidated salary and allowances.
Femi Gbajabiamila
And the ‘running cost’, which is not recognised by RMAFC, the government agency responsible for fixing salaries and allowances of public officials, may be among the items increased by the National Assembly.
The former lawmaker did not give details of the ‘running cost.’
The president ‘onlooking’
Despite the nation’s dwindling revenue, Mr Buhari has failed to address the earnings of the Legislature.
He made no remark regarding the increase in the National Assembly’s budget while signing the budget.
The president who noted an increase of N365 billion, said it is a provision for upscaling the Nigerian Social Investment Programme, which he requested for, after he laid the budget before the National Assembly in October.