National Assembly budget reduced by N14.5 billion

On Wednesday, December 19, President Muhammadu Buhari addressed members of the joint National Assembly during the presentation of the 2019 budget.

The president during the 2019 budget presentation urged the National Assembly to ensure a speedy passage of the bill.

However, in the new budget presented by President Buhari, the allocation to the National Assembly was slashed by N14.5 billion.

Daily Trust reports that while the National Assembly got N139.5 billion in the 2018 budget, this year’s budget, had a presentation of N125 billion for the lawmakers.

The budget also showed that the N125 billion approved for the National Assembly is under recurrent expenditure with overhead and capital at zero allocation.

Although there had not be details of the National Assembly budget until 2017 when both chambers bowed to public pressure and made the disclosure.

While, President Buhari had proposed N125 billion in 2018 for the National Assembly, the legislators jerked it up to N139.5 billion, a development that did not go down well with the executive arm.

Meanwhile, TRACKNEWS.NG previously reported that lawmakers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) welcomed President Buhari to the National Assembly with protest songs while their counterparts from the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), were busy cheering him.

The PDP lawmakers were singing “Freedom comes with Struggle”, while the APC lawmakers were chanting “Sai Baba” as the president made his way to the podium to present the budget.

During his presentation, the cheers and jeers continued as the PDP lawmakers booed and the APC ones clapped to overshadow the jeers.