…Reps in rowdy session
By Aaron Ossai
Bowing to pressure from Nigerians, the National Assembly has finally made public its proposed expenditure for 2017 fiscal year.
According to its published 2017 budget, the federal lawmakers is to spend N125 billion as against N115 billion it budget in 2016.
Total personnel cost takes N23, 789,787,880; total overhead cost, N85, 878,619,888; and total capital cost, N14, 940,196,063.
A breakdown of the estimates shows that the National Assembly gets N14.9bn; Senate, N31.3bn; House of Representatives, N49bn; National Assembly Service Commission, N2.4bn; legislative aides, N9.6bn; Public Accounts Committee (Senate), N118.9m; Public Accounts Committee (Reps) N142.7m; general services, N12.5bn; National Assembly Legislative Institute, N4.3bn; and service wide vote, N391.3bn.
It would be recalled that the Senate is currently considering the report by its Committee on Appropriations on the 2017 Appropriation Bill.
In another development, the House of Representatives witnessed a rowdy session as lawmakers opened debate on the 2017 budget.
The House had barely begun plenary when the attention of the lawmakers was drawn to the fact that N51bn has been allocated to the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
While some of the lawmakers agreed to the allocation of the amount to the SGF others were opposed to it.
The Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara later intervened, explaining that the fund was not meant for the SGF but for the parastatals under the SGF office.
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