Saraki releases details of National Assembly’s 2018 budget

President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki , has released details of National Assembly’ s 2018 budget in public domain .

The 45 – page document shows that a total of N 139, 500, 000 , 000 was budgeted for the National Assembly in the year 2018 .
Of this sum , N 35 , 582, 085, 699 was earmarked for the Senate , while the House of Representatives got N 57 , 425, 137 , 793.
Again , N 10 , 202 , 095, 928 was budgeted for legislative aides , the National Assembly office got N 15 , 389, 235, 912, while the National Assembly Commission got N 2 , 736, 081, 266 .

The National Assembly Legislative Institute got N 4 , 373, 813 , 596, while N 1 , 145, 143, 254 was appropriated for service – wide vote of the Legislature .

The release came on the heels of the pressure mounted on the Senate by Nigeria’ s budget watchdog , BudgIT .
Saraki had taken to his verified Twitter handle @ SPNigeria on Friday , in a tweet publicly addressed to BudgIT .

Saraki had tweeted ,
“ Dear @ BudgITng :
“ Find the details of the 2018 Budget of the National Assembly here : http : // nass . gov . ng /document/download / 10247 …
“ This is in accordance with the commitment of the leadership of the 8 th National Assembly to accountability and transparency. # OpenNASS . ”

BudgIT Nigeria, a civic tech organisation that claims to “ raise the standards of transparency, citizen engagement and accountability most especially in public finance, ” said that , since 2015 , it had consistently demanded that the annual allocations of National Assembly be public .
BudgIT said that it does this alongside another civil society organisation , Enough is Enough Nigeria, which claims to promote a culture of good governance in the society.
BudgIT said via its verified Twitter handle , @ BudgITng , that during a meeting with the Senate President on Thursday , the NGO had challenged Saraki to make it a legacy by “ sealing the National Assembly with a legislation that makes it legally binding , ” for it to make its annual budget public .

BudgIT said Saraki responded by re -assuring it that details of the National Assembly’ s 2018 /19 budgets would be made public .
“ Saraki , yesterday at a dialogue session with BudgIT on appropriation process and constituency projects vowed that making the National Assembly appropriation public is now a permanent policy , ” BudgIT said ; expressing concerns if the policy would stand when Saraki leaves the National Assembly in May.

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