‘Details of N115b National Assembly budget will be made public’

From the Senate yesterday in Abuja came an announcement that the breakdown of the N115 billion National Assembly budget for 2016 would be published along with the N6.06 trillion national budget.

The Upper Chamber, however failed to mention specific date for the publication of the details.
Spokesman of the Senate, Aliu Sabi ‎Abdullahi, said in an interview that the National Assembly budget would be contained in the national budget which would be released soon.

‎Abdullahi said the decision to publish the breakdown of the National Assembly budget was informed by the commitment of the 8th National Assembly to carrying Nigerians along on its activities.
He, however, said that he was not aware of any promises made by the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, on a specific date for the publication of the budget breakdown.

“I am not aware of any promise made by the President of the Senate.
What I know is that the National Assembly budget breakdown will be contained in the details of the budget when it is released,” he said.

Saraki had on several occasions assured Nigerians that contrary to the tradition of providing the public with one- item of the National Assembly budget, details of the 2016 National Assembly budget would be made available. He said that the document would be made available to Nigerians as part of his commitment to ensuring a transparent legislature and an effort to correct the mistakes made by past National Assembly leaders.

The lawmaker said: “I can assure you that we are going to move away from the time of one item line National Assembly to National Assembly where there will be breakdowns according to the different sections.