Lasun Alagbe
The cool relationship the current National Assembly is having with the President Muhammadu Buhari executive appears to be mutually paying off in terms of financial administration.
Despite the strain the coronavirus pandemic is exerting on the economy, the Presidency has granted the Assembly’s request for a mega-billion renovation, although with a little reduction in the amount originally required.
While the lawmakers/the Federal Capital Territory (which will execute the job) called for N37bn, the FG has now granted it N27.7bn.
Besides, N115.2bn has been allocated to the National Assembly as the year’s budget.
Although there is abot N10bn reduction in the assembly complex renovation cost, the cut is still generous compared to what other sectors or projects suffer in the revised 2020 budget.
As ‘The Punch’ analysed in a report, this is about 25 per cent reduction, compared to, say, the one for the primary health care that got reduced by over 40 per cent.
The paper notes, “In the proposed revised budget, while the National Assembly complex renovation budget was reduced to N27.7bn (a reduction of 25.1 per cent), the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, which is meant to cater for all the primary healthcare centres across the 774 local government areas in the country, was significantly reduced by N44.4bn to N25.5bn, a decrease of more than 42.5 per cent
“The Universal Basic Education fund was also reduced significantly from N111.7bn to N51.1bn, by more than 54.2 per cent, according to documents obtained by Dataphyte, an open data organisation. The UBE is a reform programme aimed at providing greater access to quality basic education throughout Nigeria.
“Incidentally, the budget for the National Assembly which was N128bn was cut by only 10 per cent, bringing its revised total budget to N115.2bn. The same calculation was applied to the National Judicial Council as its N110bn original budget was reduced by just 10 per cent, bringing it down to N99bn.”
The N37bn proposal for the Assembly complex renovation had sparked anger and pervasive criticism as many feel it runs contrary to the prudence the Buhari government preaches.
Many critics still wonder why so much has to be committed to such a project while many other vital aspects of the economy suffer.
They may thus see the Presidency as pampering the lawmakers through the relatively generous allocations.
Unlike the Bukola Saraki’s and Yakubu Dogara’s, the Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila-led assembly have been very cooperative with the Buhari administration, as evident in the granting of permission for loans required, including the latest, which is $5.5bn.
