Special assistant to the Nigerian Senate President, Abubakar Sidiq Usman, has debunked the rumour that the National Assembly approved N27bn for the renovation of it’s building.
Sadiq stated that the information was not correct and went ahead to give the real details on NASS funding.
He further stated that ‘N37bn was initially budgeted but in the revised budget, it was reduced to N9.25bn, a cut of 75%’.
He wrote, “SOME FACTS ON THE REVISED BUDGET
So our newspaper houses, using the so-called findings of a group went about town to report how to budget to health and education has been slashed by nearly half while N27bn was allocated for the renovation of the National Assembly. SERAP was quick to write some UN representatives accusing Buhari and NASS of the cut without doing their findings. They didn’t even put into consideration, the fact that NASS has only just received the budget and is yet to present it for deliberation.
“While they claim that the budget of health and education has been cut, they failed to state that it is just the basic healthcare and education components that was justifiably affected and that there are still other components including the budgets of the two ministries. By law, allocation to Basic Education and Basic Healthcare are Statutory transfers set at 2% and 1% respectively of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and since the CRF has reduced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, allocation to both components automatically reduces.”
“But while this has to automatically reduce, the FG allocated even more funds to the health and education ministries so that more can be achieved in both sectors. Health alone has almost N500bn out of which N186bn would be used to upgrade existing health facilities. In the same vein, the N27bn been touted as the new allocation for the renovation of the National Assembly (NASS) Complex is not true. N37bn was initially budgeted but in the revised budget, it was reduced to N9.25bn, a cut of 75%.”
“Despite the 75% cut from N37bn to N9.25bn, there is a possibility that the project would be suspended till later.
Our media houses failed to do the proper thing by confirming and investigating.
PDP as usual engaged in their beer parlour talk instead of doing their findings.”
Recall that the information was that the National Assembly approved N27bn for the renovation of it’s building while cutting the funding of health and education.
