The House of Representatives has rejected the N134 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2022 Budget.
The House Spokesman, Benjamin Kalu, who addressed his colleagues yesterday during the debate on the budget in Abuja, said despite the increase in the statutory transfers in the 2022 budget, the percentage of transfers to the National Assembly did not reflect the increase.
He stressed that the allocation was too small.
Kalu said: “This concerns the House. It concerns the House because, the statutory transfer as we have mentioned, there is an increase from N484.49 billion to N768.28 billion and that is a reflection of a 58.7 percent increase. This was an increase of about N283.79 billion. Do you know that this increase does not reflect in the amount that comes to the National Assembly?
“But remember, when we had a budget with lower aggregate expenditure, it was reduced from N150 billion to N128 billion. Though, we have the challenges of our forex and the challenges of purchasing power of the currency; what we have is N134 billion. Do you know what N134 billion represents for the statutory transfer?
“Let me give you this example; in 2019, we had N125 billion given to the National Assembly and that is at the level of 1.42 percent of the N8.83 trillion. In 2020, we had N128 billion given to National Assembly. That was a reduction from 1.42 to 1.18 percent of that N10.8 trillion.
“In 2021, we were given N134 billion which now represents 0.98 percent of N13.1 trillion but this year, we are given N134 billion again which is now representing 0.82 percent of N16.3 trillion here.”
