The House of Representatives has stated that should there be moves to cut the cost of governance at the federal government level, the exercise should start with the executive arm, and not the legislature as popularly being canvassed.
Spokesman of the House, Benjamin Kalu who was responding to questions by journalists during a media briefing on Thursday, said the National Assembly”s component of the 2021 budget was “sitting on just 0.8 percent” of the over N13 trillion federal budget, and so should not be the first focus.
He also condemned the erroneous perception that the apex legislature”s budget was usually shared amongst the 360 members of the House of Representatives, and 109 Senators, insisting that Nigerians should know that there were other sub institutions of the parliament and the bureaucracy to be funded.
On the suggestion that the legislature should be a part time business in governance, the lawmaker said it would not work at the level Nigerian democracy has so far achieved. “With the work the legislators do, part time legislature cannot work for now. We would not meet our targets. That could be possible some days, when democracy has grown to the level that certain things have been set on auto pilot. The more legIlators meet, interact, the more we get things done.
“Take for instance, if we are on part time legislature, we wouldn’t be able to meet the new January-December budget circle. As it is now, some members stay here until midnight; that’s true. With the enormous work we are doing, it wouldn’t work”, he said, citing the long history of American democracy and the stability so far attained, but yet on full time legislature as a possible yardstick against Nigeria’s.
He commended media’s reportage of the budget process so far, urging practitioners to do more. “We are impressed with your budget coverage so far. Please continue as that is encouraging the House to do more. We also are committed to meeting up with the new budget calendar, so by January, Nigerians will have a new budget”, he said.
On the budget timeline, he explained that it is not expected that it wouldn’t be passed by the end of December, stressing that deadlines were given to vommittees, and that it is expected beginning from Wednesday next week, some reports would begin to trickle in.
According to him, the House has introduced a “Sectoral roundtable”, intended to bring in stakeholders in a particular sector, for them to ask questions on what the focus of the House is, and also help in shaping the direction to which the House should go in the interest of the country and the citizens.
He explained that the intended public hearing on the 2021 budget was put on hold because the expected crowd may not be manageable in line with the COVID-19 protocols. “The House felt that it is not good to expose people to COVID-19, so the public hearing was postponed”, he said, promising that it is not yet rested.
