A member of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Ossai
(Delta-PDP), has said that the N125 billion appropriated to the National
Assembly is not adequate to carry out its functions effectively and
efficiently.
Ossai made the assertion in an interview on Friday in Abuja, insisting that the legislators need
more funds to discharge their duties.
The National Assembly on Thursday published
its 2017 budget of N125 billion, which was higher than the N115 billion
approved in 2016.
Ossai, however, said that the additional N10 billion
inserted in the budget would strengthen oversight functions by members of the
National Assembly.
“This is necessary so that Nigerians will have the impact
and value creation of what has been budgeted.
“Nigerians are not looking at that, we are looking at the
National Assembly as 360 members of House of Representatives and 109 Senators;
calculate it with the money that has been budgeted without looking at other
aspects.
“We are not looking at other agencies under the National
Assembly like the Public Complaints Commission, National Institute for
Legislative Studies, the National Assembly Service Commission and supporting
staff.
“The committees are carrying out national functions in line
with Section 88 of the Constitution to expose corruption.
“Those committees not only expose corruption, but block
leakages; definitely, we need a lot of money to address these issues.
“To the best of my knowledge, that money is not enough to
address the issues of carrying out the national functions of the national
assembly,” Ossai claimed.
Meanwhile, a legislative aide told NAN on ground of
anonymity that they were being owed Duty Travel Allowance (DTA) amounting to
N1.3 billion.
“We have been owed since 2015 and the management informed us
that the allowance was not captured in the 2016 budget.
“With this development, we are aware of what is appropriated
for legislative aides in the 2017 budget, we are now sure the money is there
and there will be no room for excuses anymore.
“The DTA for an individual is N75, 000 and about 3, 000
aides are being owed,” the aide said.
A breakdown of the 2017 estimates shows that N23.7 billion
would go to personnel cost, N85.8 billion for overhead and N14. 9 billion to
finance capital projects.
The National Assembly Management has N14.9 billion with the
Senate taking N31.3 billion and the House of Representatives N49 billion, while
the National Assembly Service Commission gets N2.4 billion.
The budget provides N9.6 billion for legislative aides, while
the Senate Public Accounts Committee takes N118.9 million and that of Reps
N142.7 million.
N12.5 billion has been earmarked for general services, N4.3
billion for the National Assembly Legislative Institute and N391.3 million was
earmarked for service wide vote.
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