N134bn National Assembly budget too small – House of Reps

The House of Representatives has faulted the N134 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2022 Appropriation bill.

While contributing to a debate at parliament on Thursday, Hon Benjamin Kalu, spokesman of the lower legislative chamber of the National Assembly, described the budget as too small.

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He said despite the increase in the amount of statutory transfers in the 2022 budget, the percentage of transfer to the National Assembly did not reflect the increase.

He said: “This concerns the House. It concerns the House because, the statutory transfer as we have mentioned, there is an increase from N484.49 billion to N768.28 billion and that is a reflection of 58.7 percent increase; an increase of about N283.79 billion. Do you know that this increase does not reflect in the amount that comes to the National Assembly?”

“But remember, when we had a budget with lower aggregate expenditure, it was reduced from N150 billion to N128 billion though, we have the challenges our forex and the challenges of the purchasing power of the currency; why are we remaining on N134 billion? Do you know what N134 billion represent for the statutory transfer?

“Let me give you this example; in 2019, we had N125 billion given to the NASS and that is at the level of 1.42 percent of the N8.83 trillion.

“In 2020, we had N128 billion given to National Assembly. That was a reduction from 1.42 to 1.18 percentage of that N10.8 trillion.

“In 2021, we were given N134 billion which now represents 0.98 percent of N13.1 trillion but this year, we are given N134 billion again which is now representing 0.82 percent here.”