Budget: National Assembly to get N169bn in 2023, highest allocation in history

The federal government has allocated N169 billion to the National Assembly for the 2023 fiscal year.

The amount is contained in the 2023 budget of N20.51 trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly last Friday.

A copy of the budget published by the Ministry of Finance revealed the breakdown of the budget for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as statutory transfers – a category under which the National Assembly falls.

The N169 billion is the highest annual budgetary allocation ever made to the Legislature.

Until 2015, the annual allocations to the National Assembly had been N150 billion and between 2015 and 2020, the budget was N125 billion. In 2021, Mr Buhari upped the lawmakers’ allocation to N128 billion but during passage, the lawmakers increased it to N134 billion – an act the president overlooked.

For the 2022 budget, the president allocated N134 billion to the National Assembly and this sum was increased by over N500 million when the National Assembly passed it.

With the president proposing N169 billion for the lawmakers for the coming year, there are concerns that the latter would augment the sum when it is approved.

The allocation, disregard for the nation’s dwindling economy, comes amid calls to reduce the cost of governance. It also comes amid plans by the federal government to borrow to fund the 2023 budget.

Nigerian lawmakers are among the highest paid in the world, earning millions of naira monthly as allowances besides their salaries.

The huge salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly, over the years, have generated public outcry.

Zero transparency

Details of the legislature’s budgetary allocation were not published in the document – an act which is not new to Nigerians.

Unlike other MDAs in the budget where line items and a breakdown of the allocation were disclosed, the National Assembly was blank.

There have been calls to lawmakers for transparency in their annual budget. And many Nigerians have berated both past and present assemblies for always shrouding their budgetary allocations in secrecy. Others have also said the budgets for the legislature increase annually with zero accountability.

Since its inauguration, the Ahmad Lawan-led assembly has only attempted to publish details of its allocations once and that was in 2021.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Barau Jibril, explained at the time that it was “an attempt at transparency.”

Before then, the Bukola Saraki-led eight assembly only published a breakdown of its budget in 2017 after an #OpenNASS campaign was done across social media platforms to mount pressure on the lawmakers.

Although a breakdown of the National Assembly’s budget has not been made public, the N169 billion allocation will most likely be shared among the Senate, House of Representatives, legislative aides, National Assembly Management and the National Assembly Service Commission.

The allocation is also expected to cover the budget for the office of retired clerks and permanent secretaries, the service-wide vote of the legislature and other services.