Mustapha Dawaki, chairman, house
committee on appropriation, says the budget size was increased by N86 billion
because the severance pay for lawmakers and legislative aides was not included.
Addressing journalists on
Tuesday, Dawaki said the legislative arm also decided to provide more funding
for security agencies.
“There is a slight increase in
budget deficit because of severance of lawmakers, legislative aides. There is
also a need to provide more funds for security organisations,” the legislator
said.
“This is because there are so
many outstanding items not captured in the proposal. For instance, there was a
Senate resolution for special intervention of N10 billion in Zamfara due to the
crisis that occurred there.
“Also not captured but equally
critical was the severance benefits of outgoing legislators and their aides.
“This severance packages always
occurred once in four years, in the transition years and this amounted to N24.6
billion.
“N3 billion was also included in
the budget for the payment of allowances arrears of legislative aides it was
not also captured initially.
“We also provided additional
funds for security agencies across board because we believed that more funds
would improve the discharge of their responsibilities.
“All these were captured under
Capital Supplementation from Service Wide vote”.
Dawaki said government
ministries, departments and agencies should be blamed for the late passage of
the budget; explaining that they refused to show up for defence and
presentation sessions since the proposal was submitted by the president in
December 2018.
The lawmaker said the document
would be transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday for assent.
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