Legislators Agree to Belt-tightening, Cut N’Assembly’s Budget by 25%

Towing the same path of the federal government to cut costs owing to dwindling oil revenue occasioned by low oil prices, the National Assembly, for the first time in years, has finally agreed to a 25 per cent cut in its annual budget of N150 billion.

By acquiescing to the 25 per cent cut, the National Assembly will shed N37.5 billion of its annual budget, meaning that when the 2015 budget is finally passed, its budget will stand at N112.5 billion.

A source privy to the negotiations between the National Assembly and the executive arm of government told THISDAY on Wednesday that the lawmakers finally agreed to the cut as part of their sacrifice to steer the economy out of the woods following a significant loss of government revenue to falling oil prices.

Prior to their acceptance to slash their budget, the National Assembly’s budget was a no-go-area for the executive, which for years had allotted N150 billion to the legislature even when other MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) of government were forced to accept budget cuts.

The decision on the cut to the National Assembly’s budget was taken by the lawmakers before the commencement of plenary.

THISDAY had exclusively reported on Wednesday that, while a majority of the lawmakers supported the cut in the National Assembly’s budget, some had kicked against it because they did not want to lose their privileges.

Those who had kicked against the new $52 per barrel oil benchmark as well as the reduction in the National Assembly budget were also said to have demanded that the N50 billion allocated to constituency projects be paid instantly.

In addition to the cut in the National Assembly’s budget, the executive had proposed a 25 per cent cut to the State House budget, and had made cuts to overseas travel and training programmes for public sector workers this year.

Also, the Senate yesterday unanimously reduced the N2.616 trillion proposed for recurrent expenditure in the 2015 budget to N2.5 trillion and simultaneously raised the capital vote from the proposed N633 billion to N700 billion.

The decision followed the presentation and adoption of the report of the joint National Assembly Committee on Finance and Appropriation on the Medium Term and Expenditure Framework presented by its Chairman, Senator Ahmed Makarfi.

The Senate also drastically slashed the subsidy for petrol from the proposed N200 billion to N100 billion and reduced kerosene subsidy from N91 billion to N45.5 billion.

It also slashed the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) allocation from N102 billion to N21 billion.

In the same vein, the parliament cut the N411.8 billion statutory transfers proposed by the executive to N363.2 and increased non-oil revenue expectations from N3.539 trillion to N4.02 trillion.

 

Source: Thisdaylive