The National Assembly is to spend over ₦13bn on refreshment, transportation and welfare packages in 2017, estimates of its new budget have shown.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives budgeted about ₦11.5bn for general travels and transportation (local and international) in the next fiscal year, excluding the allocation for vehicles. Senate will spend ₦3, 777,114,399 and House of Representatives will spend ₦7, 722,489,596 for the same purpose.
The lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly will also spend a total sum of ₦1.3bn on refreshment and meals. The item will cost the Senate ₦409, 973,760, while the House will spend ₦913, 289,760 for the same purpose.
While both chambers made zero allocation for honorarium, their welfare packages will gulp ₦539, 760,392; ₦398, 168,712 in the House and ₦141, 591,680 in the Senate.
These estimates are exclusive of those of the National Assembly bureaucracy.
The National Assembly, as part of its ‘Open NASS’ campaign, had on Thursday published its 2017 budget, which showed that the legislature had raised its budget estimates from the ₦115bn in 2016 to ₦125bn.
The total personnel cost takes ₦23,789,787,880; total overhead cost, ₦85,878,619,888; and total capital cost, ₦14,940,196,063.
A breakdown of the estimates shows that the National Assembly Management gets ₦14.9bn; Senate, ₦31.3bn; House of Representatives, ₦49bn; National Assembly Service Commission, ₦2.4bn; legislative aides, ₦9.6bn; Public Accounts Committee (Senate), ₦118.9m; Public Accounts Committee (Reps), ₦142.7m; general services, ₦12.5bn; National Assembly Legislative Institute, ₦4.3bn; and service wide vote, ₦391.3bn.
Despite the publication, the remuneration of each member of the National Assembly is still shrouded in secrecy.
A further analysis of the estimates made available to the public showed that under “General Services,” cleaning services for the NASS Phase III Building will cost ₦606, 916,919.
Under the same column, the National Assembly has also budgeted ₦640, 584,000 for constitution amendment, while “Budget Coordination Activities” will cost ₦197, 665,920.
In their separate budgets, the PAC of both chambers will spend ₦56, 783,747 on transport and travels. PAC-Senate will spend ₦25, 339,572, while PAC-House will spend ₦31, 444,175.
The committee will also jointly spend ₦20, 546,748 on “printing of non-security documents.”
Refreshment and meals will cost the Senate committee ₦14, 417,492, while the House committee will spend ₦16, 748,428, bringing the total to ₦31, 165,920.
On honorarium, a total sum of ₦60, 220,882 will be spent by the committees. In the Senate, it will cost ₦24, 232,712 and ₦35, 988,170 in the House.
The National Assembly, on Thursday, passed the 2017 Appropriation Bill, with budget estimates totalling ₦7.441 trillion.