by Omoleye Omoruyi
A member of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Ossai (Delta-PDP), has said that the N125 billion appropriated to the National Assembly is not enough to carry out its activities effectively.
He said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja, insisting that more funds should be given to the National Assembly.
It was reported on Thursday that the National Assembly published its 2017 budget of N125 billion, where N10 billion was added to the N115 billion approved in 2016.
“This is necessary so that Nigerians will have the impact and value creation of what has been budgeted.
“Nigerians are not looking at that, we are looking at the National Assembly as 360 members of House of Representatives and 109 Senators; calculate it with the money that has been budgeted without looking at other aspects.
“We are not looking at other agencies under the National Assembly like the Public Complaints Commission, National Institute for Legislative Studies, the National Assembly Service Commission and supporting staff.
“The committees are carrying out national functions in line with Section 88 of the Constitution to expose corruption.
“That committees not only expose corruption, but block leakages; definitely, we need a lot of money to address these issues.
“To the best of my knowledge, that money is not enough to address the issues of carrying out the national functions of the national assembly,” Ossai claimed.
Meanwhile, a legislative aide told NAN on ground of anonymity that they were being owed Duty Travel Allowance (DTA) amounting to N1.3 billion.
“We have been owed since 2015 and the management informed us that the allowance was not captured in the 2016 budget.
“With this development, we are aware of what is appropriated for legislative aides in the 2017 budget, we are now sure the money is there and there will be no room for excuses anymore.
“The DTA for an individual is N75, 000 and about 3, 000 aides are being owed,” the aide said.
Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram
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