Disclosing judiciary budget details counterproductive — Senate panel

The Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters says releasing the judiciary budget details to the public could be counterproductive as some of the items listed therein border on security issues.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, stated this while addressing newsmen after he defended his panel’s 2022 budget report before the Appropriation Committee.

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He had earlier urged the appropriation panel to increase the N120bn allocated to the judiciary in the 2022 budget by N10bn to cater for the issue of virtual court proceedings scheduled to start next year.

Asked why the details of the country’s judiciary annual budgets were still shrouded in secrecy, Bamidele said Nigerians should show more interest in the utilisation of the funds instead of wanting to get the details.

He said: “I’d be more concerned if we’re talking about judiciary that has a budget of a trillion naira or N500bn. But we’re talking about a judiciary with a budget which is not even up to one per cent of the entire national budget.”