Senate slashes NASS budget to N120bn

CHIBISI OHAKAH & CHRIS EMETOH, Abuja

The Senate yesterday bowed to the clamour for a reduction of salaries and allowances of politicians and workers in the National Assembly by recommending the slashing of the National Assembly’s 2015 budget from N150 billion to N120 billion.

The Senate was, however, silent on whether the recommended slash will amount to a slash in the salaries and allowances of lawmakers as proposed by some lawmakers.

Chairman, Senate adhoc Committee on Media and Publicity, Dino Melaye, who spoke to journalists after a closed session of the senate where the report of the Committee on Finance was discussed, said it is however still the job of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to fix salaries of public officers.

He said that the final budget of the National Assembly will emerge after due consultations with other arms of the National Assembly, including the House of Representatives, disclosing that no arm of the NASS has an independent budget.

“We are going to interface with the House of Representatives and the other arms of the National Assembly so that we can be on the same page on the report as presented,” he said.

He denied reports that the slash was a response to the cash crunch rumoured to have hit the National Assembly.

Senator Melaye was, however, evasive on whether the recommended slash in the NASS budget represents the willingness of senators to slash their salaries and allowances.

“Reduction of salaries of public officers is not new; the President has cut his salary, and the vice president has cut his own too. The governor of Kaduna State has done so.

“It is the responsibility of the Revenue Allocation and Fiscal Commission to say how much public officers will be paid. But it rests on a particular public officer to say, ‘I am taking half of my salary, and taking half back to the treasury where it would be used for other developmental projects.”

Senator Melaye said the Senate is willing to make sacrifices for the purpose of developmental projects, adding that the said sacrifices have been indicated even in the Appropriation Act 2015.

“For the past five years, the budget of the National Assembly has always been N150 billion, but in the 2015 budget of the National Assembly, it is N120 billion. Already, there has been a reduction of N30 billion.

“This N120 billion is expected to be shared among the various arms of the National Assembly, including the National Assembly Service Commission, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Institute of Legislative Studies and the others”.