The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yusuf Lasun has come out to defend the N150 billion set aside in the budget to cater for the needs of members of the National Assembly.
Speaking to newsmen after the inauguration of the House committee on welfare, Lasun said the budget was not excessive saying it was “only” 2.67% of the national budget.
He said: “When you talk about salary it has to be tied to something. Let me tell you this, for the last three years with the exception of 2015, the budget of National Assembly has been N150 billion and that is exactly 2.67 percent of the total budget of the federation, so I don’t know where people see this when they said it was 25 percent of the budget of the federation.
“The budget of the National Assembly is 2.67 percent of the budget of the federation and so it is not overblown. People have suddenly forgotten and don’t know that there are 469 members in the National Assembly with each one having five aides, paid from the N150 billion with their technocrats. We have National Assembly commission all of them draw their salaries and allowances from the N150 billion.
“So when people talk, they say it’s only the House of Reps members and the Senators that collect the N150 billion. But they forget that in the 2015 budget, the money was reduced to N120 billion and so when you do the calculation.
“That’s why the Dogara’s Speakership in the last one week has repeatedly made it known to the public that he’s going to engage in what we call NEEDS assessment. With that we are going to call the development partners to sit down and see what it takes for National Assembly to be involved as an arm of government and you might be surprised that we have reasons that we can compare with other legislative houses all over the world.
“But it is not going to come from us, it will come from that body that is going to sit down.”
