Slash your self-serving N344.85billion NASS budget – SERAP tells Akpabio, Abbas

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, to reduce the National Assembly budget of N344.85 billion to reflect the current economic realities in the country and cut the cost of governance.

SERAP urged them to ask President Bola Tinubu to present a fresh supplementary appropriation bill, which will reflect the reduced National Assembly budget for approval.

The organisation also urged them to publish details of the National Assembly budget of N344.85b, including the proposed spending details of N3 billion for the Senate Car Park and N3 billion budgeted for the House of Representatives Car Park.

In a letter at the weekend, signed by SERAP Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said passing appropriation bills that are inconsistent with the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution is a fundamental breach of the constitutional oath of office by the lawmakers.

It added that the arbitrary increase by the lawmakers of their own budgetary allocation, if not cut, would have significant fiscal consequences, and exacerbate the country’s debt crisis.

According to SERAP, the unilateral and self-serving increase by the lawmakers of their own allocation also offends the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances and the notion of the rule of law.

The body said: “The increase in the National Assembly budget has raised serious questions in the minds of the Nigerian people about how the lawmakers are spending their commonwealth.

“The National Assembly ought to be more responsible to the public interest and more responsive to it. The National Assembly has a constitutional responsibility to combat waste and abuse in its own spending if it is to effectively exercise its oversight functions and hold the government to account.”

Cutting the N344.48 billion National Assembly budget, SERAP said, would be consistent with lawmakers’ oath of office, and the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution.

“Cutting your budget would promote efficient, honest, and legal spending of public money. It would serve the public interest and restore public confidence in the National Assembly,” the organisation notes.

SERAP also urged Akpabio and Abbas to clarify the details of the N8.5 billion budgeted for ‘National Assembly liabilities’ and to disclose the nature of any such liabilities and how and why they have been incurred.

The body lamented that the N344.48b National Assembly budget, which is an increase of about N147b, is the highest-ever budgetary allocation to the National Assembly.