By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The National Assembly on Thursday yielded to pressure from well meaning Nigerian by making public its budget and breakdown for the first since return to democracy in May 29, 1999.
The NASS budget which has been shrouded in secrecy has come under severe criticism especially with the economic recession and fight against corruption of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
According to Daily Post, Senate President, Bukola Saraki, in a series of tweets on his twitter handle @bukolasaraki, said that the “budget breakdown for @nassnigeria has been released.”
“We said we will, and we did,” Saraki said.
The budget showed that the National Assembly has budgeted N125bn as against N115bn in 2016.
“This is in fulfilment of promise by President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, that the 8th NASS will publish its 2017 budget”.
A summary of the Proposed 2017 Budget showed that the National Assembly gets N14.9bn.
While Senate gets a total of N31.3bn, the House of Representatives gets N49bn.
The National Assembly Service Commission gets N2.4bn while the legislative aides get a budget of N9.6bn.
Also, Public Accounts Committee (Senate) gets N118.9m while that of Reps gets N142.7m.
The breakdown further shows that the General services gets N12.5bn; National Assembly Legislative Institute, N4.3bn while the Service wide vote gets N391.3bn.
