TheNewsGuru

Tag: National Assembly

  • Senate issues two weeks ultimatum to agencies yet to submit budget proposal

    Nigerian Senate apart from making public, list of government agencies yet to submit their 2017 budget proposal to the National Assembly in line with extant law issued two weeks ultimatum for compliance.

    Recall that the Senate on Tuesday lamented that the situation negated President Muhammadu Buhari’s stance against corruption.
    Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, who drew the attention of his colleagues to the abnormality during plenary, insisted that it was wrong for agencies to spend money that has not been appropriated by the legislature.

    Na’Allah told his colleagues that he intends to bring the issue to the floor as a motion so that Senators will understand the implications and the need to assist the government to fight corruption.

    “I deliberately decided that I will bring it on the floor, so that Senators will understand the implications,” Na’Allah said.
    “In our commitment to assist this government to fight corruption, we must stand on our feet that every spirit of our law must be obeyed by those holding public offices.

    “I think that if you permit me I will like to come tomorrow by way of motion, so it can be debated on the Floor of the Senate.

    “The only approach this Senate can take to assist this government in fighting corruption, is to insist that gross abuse of power and misuse of power must be stopped by every government agency.
    “The only way we can build our institutions is to radically address the issue of abuse of power and misuse of power. I think that if you give me permission, I will like to bring it tomorrow as a motion.”

    How coup rumours made Buratai redeploy top Army officers

    The full list of agencies yet to submit their budget, as released by the Senate, below:

    Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASEI), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), National Maritime Authority (NMA), Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Nigerian Postal Service (NPS), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA),

    Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), National Communications Commission (NCC), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

    Others are National Insurance Commission (NIC), News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Nigerian Copyrights Commission (NCC), Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Radio Nigeria, Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

    Buhari: Buratai warns Army officers against secret meetings with politicians

    National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB), Federal Mortgage Bank, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), as well as Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority (OGZFA)

  • Acting President, Osinbajo reviews 2017 budget

    The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo is currently reviewing the 2017 budget.

    The Senior special assistant to the Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo on Media and publicity, Laolu Akande stated this on Monday in a statement on his twitter handle @akandeoj.

    Laolu revealed that the acting president is presiding over a meeting with the economic management team with the aim of reviewing the 2017 appropriation bill amongst other economic matters.

    “Acting President Osinbajo, presiding over Economic Management Team reviewing major issues, 2017 budget & others. In attendance are ministers & CBN gov.” he said.

    He also stated that the implementation of the 2017 appropriation bill would not be difficult once the bill has been assented.

    It could be recalled that the National assembly had on Thursday passed 2017 appropriation bill.

  • Breakdown of N125bn National Assembly Budget

    The National Assembly, on Thursday last week, for the first time, published the details of its budget, beginning with the 2017 budget.

    However, despite the huge encomiums coming the way of the leadership of the National Assembly for the bold step, Nigerians are also beginning to lament the huge funds allocated to the lawmakers.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the National Assembly budget totaled N125billion.

    Below is a breakdown of the budget and allocations:

    1. Travels: The National Assembly plans to spend N13.38bn on Travels
    3. Vehicles: The National Assembly plans to spend N7.77bn on vehicle

    3. Sewage charges: The National Assembly plans to spend N74.06m on sewage charges and N52.8m for the proposed state house.

    The published documents show Nigerian senators will earn about N17m per annum as salary, while their House of Representatives counterparts will earn about N13m.

    However, when the National Assembly tweeted the budget, below was their breakdown: –

    Management of National Assembly: N14, 919, 065, 013 – Senate: N31, 398, 765, 886 – House of Representatives: N49, 052, 743, 983 – NASS Service Commission: N22, 415, 712, 873 – Legislative aides: N9, 602, 095,

    – PAC Senate: N118, 970, 215 – PAC House of Representatives: N142, 764, 258 General Services: N12, 584, 672, 079 NASS legislative institute: N4, 373, 813, 596 Service-wide-vote: 391, 396, 169

    Sum total: N125,000,000,000.

    Download full budget here…

     

    Photo Credit: BudgiT

  • Download 2017 National Assembly Full Budget

    The National Assembly, Thursday, for the first time, published the details of its budget, beginning with the 2017 budget.

    See documents below

    2017-NASS-Budget

  • National Assembly passes 2017 budget

    National Assembly passes 2017 budget

    The National Assembly has passed the 2017 Appropriations Bill, raising the budget from N7.28 billion earlier proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year, to N7.44 trillion.

    The Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives separately presented their harmonised reports of the budget for consideration and subsequent passage on Thursday.

    According to the report, N434.4 billion was appropriated for statutory transfers to the National Judicial Council (N100 billion); Niger Delta Development Commission (N64.02 billion); Universal Basic Education (N95.2 billion); National Assembly (N125 billion); Public Complaints Commission (N4 billion); INEC (N45 billion); and National Human Rights Commission (N1.2 billion).

    The seven establishments are to get allocations on first line charge. In practice, the spending details of these offices are not made public.

    But the spokesperson for the Senate, Aliyu Abdullahi, told Journalists details of the National Assembly budget are included in the whole national budget, ending eight years of secrecy.

    “We have opened our budget,” he said. “Details are in the (whole) budget, that’s what I have come to tell you.”

    A spokesperson for Senate President Bukola Saraki, Sani Onogu, said that “line by line details of the NASS budget were in the appropriations bill.

    “This one (the breakdown) is just an advanced copy. The public will see everything line by line regarding NASS budget. That is historic,” he said.

    Speaking in the plenary, Dino Melaye said: “For the first, the budget contains full details of the National Assembly, not only line by line, but explicitly. I was happy when I saw NASS budget details in the document distributed to us this morning.

    This will afford civil society groups and every Nigerian to ask questions.”

    In the breakdown of the National Assembly budget released by Mr. Abdullahi, the Management, Senate the House of Representatives are to receive N14,919,065013, 31,398,765,886 and 49,052,743,983.

    Other appropriations under the National Assembly are as follows: legislative aides, 9,602,095,928; NASS Service Commission, 2,415,712,873; PAC-Senate, N118,970,215; N142,764,258; General Services, N12,584,672,079; NASS Legislative Institute, 4,373,813,596; and Service Wide Vote, 391,396,169.

    The National Assembly also appropriated N2,987,550,033,436 for non-debt recurrent expenditure of the MDAs that are not under statutory transfers club.

    Capital expenditure is slightly less, taking N2,177,866,775867.

    For debt service, the National Assembly earmarked N1,488,002,436,547 to service domestic debts; N175,882,993,952 for foreign debts; and 177,460,296707 for sinking fund to retire maturing loans, totalling 1,841,345,727,206 for debt service.

    The Clause 11 of the bill, referenced in the harmonized report, provides that the budget will run for a course of 12 months starting from the date is assented into law, in line with Section of the Constitution.

    In his remark, Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, reckoned that the 2017 budget marked the first time capital expenditure would reach 30 per cent.

  • JUST IN: National Assembly raises 2017 budget by N143bn

    JUST IN: National Assembly raises 2017 budget by N143bn

    The House of Representatives on Tuesday received the report of 2017 N7.30tn Appropriation Bill from its Committee on Appropriation for final consideration.

    The report indicated that the committee increased the budget to N7.44tn, representing an addition of about N143bn to the one presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on Dec. 14, 2016.

    After the receipt of the bill, the House referred it to the Appropriation Committee on Jan. 26, 2017, but its processing suffered delay due to the inability of other committees to tidy their reports in time.

    Presenting the report at plenary, Chairman of the committee, Rep. Mustapha Dawaki, said that the committee worked with other committees in the House to arrive at the new figure for the budget.

    According to the report, N434.4bn is for statutory transfer, N1.84tn for debt servicing and N177.46bn is for sinking Fund for maturing bonds.

    The committee appropriated N2.99tn for recurrent (Non-Debt) expenditure, while N2.17tn was provided for contribution to the development fund for Capital Expenditure.

     

     

     

    NAN

  • DPR boss says Nigeria lost $850m to gas flaring

    The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has said Nigeria, the ninth largest gas producing nation in the world, lost over 850 million dollars to gas flaring in 2015.

    Mrs Pat Maseli, Deputy Director, Head, Upstream, DPR, gave the statistics at the just concluded 10th Annual Sub-Saharan Africa Oil and Gas Conference in Houston, Texas, U.S.

    Maseli said that the development led to a loss of 3,500 megawatts of electricity generation and about 400 million dollars carbon credit value emission.

    She said, “55 million Barrels of Oil Equivalent (BOE) was lost and 25 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted.

    “The country is recording decline, but the scale of gas flaring is still worrisome’’.

    She said that with almost 8 billion cubic meters of gas flared annually, according to satellite data, Nigeria had the seventh largest gas flaring in the world.

    “At the same time, approximately 75 million Nigerians lack access to electricity.

    “In recent years, Nigeria has shown significant progress by reducing gas flaring by about 2 billion cubic metres from 2012 to 2015,’’ she was quoted as saying.

    Maseli said that prior to now, there were no gas terms in place, but the department had recently developed policies on gas terms and utilisation.

    “This was passed to operators for their input which will subsequently be sent to the National Assembly for its passage

    “The Gas Master Plan seeks to deliver gas to commercial sub sector for use as fuel, captive power and related end-use, to consolidate Nigeria’s position and market share in high value export markets.

    “It will create regional hub for gas-based industries, including fertiliser, petrochemical and methanol.

    “ It will also transform the gas sector to a value-adding sector,’’ Maseli said.

    On the breakdown of the 2008-2013 Domestic Gas Supply Obligation (DGSO), she said that compliance was about 23 per cent.

    It said that in 2016, the DGSO was achieved at 38.18 per cent, while in 2017, it was 40 per cent.

  • Facebook lauds Saraki for opening up National Assembly

    The Office of the President of the Senate is indeed delighted at the endorsement of the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki for opening up the activities of the 8th Nigerian National Assembly through various channels, especially the daily Facebook Live Video streaming from Senate Plenary.

    The Chief Product Officer and Company Lead on Product Management and Development of Facebook, Christopher Cox, gave the commendation while speaking at The Future of Media Keynote Session and opening of the annual Social Media Week held at the Landmark Centre in Lagos.

    Special Assistant to the Senate President on New Media, Bamikole Omishore, in a statement in Abuja, said: “This commendation reinforces one of the core mandates of the Senate President to the New Media unit, which is to bridge the gap between the Senate and Nigerians.

    “The Nigerian Senate facebook live streaming has an average view of four million unique clicks monthly for the plenary live feeds and we will be expanding coverage to courtesy calls, committee hearings and oversights in the next few months,” he said.

    Omishore added: “You would recall that Saraki personally attended the 2016 edition of the Social Media Week in company of Senators Foster Ogola, Dino Melaye and Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi amongst others, where he spoke on the topic: “Promoting Online Communities to improve Participatory Governance” and subsequently had a no-holds-barred interaction with traditional and social media enthusiasts on how to continue bridging the gap between elected government officials and Nigerians passionate about the use of social media for political engagement.

    “We are encouraged to do more with this commendation and wish to kindly reiterate and assure our friends, from the online community and beyond, of the commitment of the Senate President towards ensuring that the 8th National Assembly continues to witness improved transparency and accountability on government functions and people participation,” he said.

     

     

  • #IStandWithNigeria: [Photos]: Protesters besiege National Stadium

    #IStandWithNigeria: [Photos]: Protesters besiege National Stadium

    Protesters have started moving in their hundreds to the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos venue of the #IStandWithNigeria protest.

    TheNewsGuru.com recalls that hip hop star, Innocent Idiabia (2baba) who had been spearheading the campaign had earlier backed out sighting security reasons.

    TheNewsGuru.com team in presently at the National Stadium and here are pictures from the rally:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Sonaiya wants slash in lawmakers’ salaries, allowances

    The 2015 Presidential Candidate of KOWA Party, Prof. Oluremi Sonaiya, says the nation can considerably reduce its spending by slashing the salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly.

    Sonaiya said at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Lagos that the nation’s lawmakers earned too much money, which attracted many to the legislature.

    “There must be a real slash in legislators’ salary; what is it that they are doing that makes them have a right to that much money?

    “I believe it is because of a sort of the consequence of the political system that we are running,’’ she said.

    The politician said that the legislature should not be made to seem like a place to recoup money spent in politicking and campaigns.

    “We must really de-emphasise that; but I think that we must run a system where people are paid reasonable salaries,’’ she said.

    Sonaiya said that during her visit to the United States as an observer during the last presidential election, she understood that in the state of New Hampshire, each member of the State House of Assembly earned a token sum.

    According to her, she learned that the government of New Hampshire State gives each of the legislators a cheque of $200 once for the two years, out of which they still pay federal tax.

    She said what that meant was that people who went there were definitely not people looking for money but people who were purely motivated by the desire to serve.

    Sonaiya also spoke on money politics and urged Nigerians to resist “money bags politicians.’’

    She said if that was done, cases of imposition of candidates during elections would be difficult and the nation’s democracy would grow.

    According to her, KOWA party’s model is to give everybody a voice as all contribute.

    “It is my money and the money of every individual that we will pull together to advance our course and that will make every single one of our voices have equal weight,’’ she said.