Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has stated that the details of the National Assembly’s 2017 budget will be made public.
He said the public release of the budget details would enable Nigerians to get the true picture of things and not to rely on speculations .
Saraki’s who made the remarks last night on Arise News Night, a current affairs programme on Arise News Network also assures that the 2017 Nigeria’s budget will be ready on the 5th of May.
He added, “On the National Assembly budget, we hope to change the way it’s been perceived, because in the past, not much was known about the National Assembly budget.
“But when I came in, I said we were going to change that and make it transparent. We hoped that we could have done it in 2016, but in 2015, unfortunately, we did not settle down as a united Senate as quickly as we could.
“But now that everything is fine, the National Assembly’s budget will be transparent. Nigerians will know what every member receives.
“By the time the budget is passed in the next few weeks, we will make it public and it will be to our advantage, because we hear statements like National Assembly members are the highest paid, because what people do is to take the budget and divide it by 469 members and arrive at our salaries.
“But by the time we present the budget and by the time people see what goes to salaries of aides, what goes to capital, what goes to management, what goes to running costs, and what goes to actual salaries of legislators, the commentary will stop after they see the breakdown,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13ZGPl0U2vM&t=1030s
However, when Saraki was reminded that there is the widespread perception that Nigerian legislators collect humongous salaries estimated at $189,000 per annum, which is 116 times above Nigeria’s GDP per capita, he dismissed the notion, stating: “Those figures like I explained are arrived at when they have taken the bulk budget of N115 billion and divided it by 469 members and come with a figure of $189,000 per annum.
“When we release the detailed budget, you will see what is the salary, you will see what is allowances, you will see what is the cost of running the offices, you will see what is management, you will see the cost of legislative studies, you will see the cost of the capital budget.
“So you will now be able to actually know how much a legislator earns and how much he is even paid to run his office, which he has to retire. But because over the years, it has never been made public, people have concluded that legislators earn a lot more and they are not going to make it public.
“Then again, if you look at other countries like the UK or US, in the US, a senator gets close to $1 million to $2 million to run his office, but nobody adds that to his salary. But because we have not broken down our budget, this has caused the misrepresentation.”
He also explained that the allowances of legilators are determined by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Meanwhile, When the Arise anchor, Charles Aniagolu, reminded him that the executive recently set up a reconciliatory committee to look into the frosty relationship between the Senate and the executive, Saraki said he was not aware of any committee, as there was no need for it.
“But I don’t think that the committee was set up because we rejected one person. There are many nominees we have rejected, and been re-presented or replaced.
“But we can’t define our democracy based on individuals. There is a process; the process is transparent. The president sent a name and the nominee has been rejected. That is it, we’ve played our own part; and I don’t think the executive is basing the relationship on the rejection of one nominee.
“I’m not aware of the committee, I think it was announced after a cabinet meeting, but since then that has not happened.
“May be on second thoughts, I think the question to ask is, is the committee really necessary? Besides, when the relationship was not as good as this, when we had major issues such as the budget (last year), we didn’t have a committee.