The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has disclosed that the N128 billion budget of the National Assembly is shrouded in secrecy.
The Minister said this in an interview with Kadaria Ahmed on radio, which was monitored by The Eagle Online.
Ahmed explained that the Ministry is not aware of the recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure and overheads expenditure in the budget of the National Assembly for 2020.
The Minister said: “The President directed us that we should protect salaries and pensions and we must cut expenditure.
“But we are asked to cut expenditure by 20 per cent and we have reduced the recurrent expenditure from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies by 16 per cent on the capital expenditure side.
“What we did is to bring out and remove administrative expenditures.
“For instance, buying of vehicles, rehabilitation of buildings, building of new offices and so on.
“As for the budget of the National Assembly, we have had engagement with them and they are supposed to do that rationalisation themselves because we don’t have details of what is the component of salaries, which has been directed that it should be protected, and what component is recurrent and what is in the capital.”
When she was asked whether it was a constitutional thing for the budget to be shrouded in secrecy, Ahmed said: “It is not constitutional.
“We are asking them to do the cut and provide the information to us.
“Also, it will be included in the supplementary budget.
“The principle is the same proportion that is done in our budget.
“The Judiciary will also decide which component of their budget will be cut.”
When asked whether, the lawmakers are resisting reduction in their budget amidst the Coronavirus Disease outbreak, Ahmed said: “I don’t think they will refuse to cut their budget from our engagement with them.
“They fully understand the situation, where we are and believe they should be doing this.”
