*N100bn voted for 479 members’ constituency projects
* FG votes N1.6bn, N1.53bn for new vehicles, international trips for state house
*Vice President’s office gets N1.1bn
Deji Elumoye and Udora Orizu in Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has proposed the sum of N234 billion for the National Assembly in the 2022 appropriation bill that was laid before a joint session of the parliament last week.
The President had last Thursday presented the 2022 Aggregate FGN Expenditure (inclusive of GOEs and project-tied Loans) projected to be N16.39 trillion, which was 12.5 per cent higher than the 2021 budget.
In the 2022 appropriation bill, the sum of N100 billion was proposed for the execution of constituency projects for all the 479 members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, while N134 billion was captured under the Statutory Transfer for the 2022 fiscal year.
The proposed N134 billion as National Assembly’s statutory allocation for the 2022 fiscal year was N6 billion higher than the sum of N128 billion proposed by the Presidency in the 2021 budget estimates which was approved by the legislative arm.
A breakdown of the subheads showed that the sum of N15,967,404,815 were National Assembly Management; N33,267,001,807 was for Senate; N51,994,511,954 was for House of Representatives; N5,734,166,662 was for National Assembly Service Commission (NASC); N9,602,095,928 was for Legislative Aides; N118,970,215 was for Senate Committee on Public Accounts; N142,764,258 was for House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts; N9,134,672,079 was for General Service; N7,373,813,596 was for National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS); N389,354,934 was for Service–Wide Vote; N275,243,752 was for Office of the Retired Clerks and Permanent Secretaries; while N8,690,000,000 was for Public Complaints Commission (PCC).
Other 2022 budget lines captured in the Statutory Transfer included: “N120 billion (against N110 billion proposed in 2021 estimates) for National Judicial Council (NJC); N46.172 billion (against N29.70 billion proposed in 2021 estimates) for North East Development Commission (NEDC); N4.5 billion (against N3 billion proposed in the 2021 estimates) for National Human Right Commission (NHRC); N98.712 billion (against N63.51 billion) for Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
“N140 billion (against N40 billion proposed in the 2021 estimates) for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); N54.051 billion for National Agency for Science Engineering & Infrastructure (NASENI); N8.690 billion (against N5.20 billion proposed in the 2021 estimates) for Public Complaint Commission (PCC); N108.102 (against N70.05 billion proposed in the 2021 estimates) for Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and N54.051 (against N35.03 billion proposed in the 2021 estimates) for Basic Health Care Fund.”
In a related development, the State House, Abuja is to buy new vehicles and repair old ones in the 2022 fiscal year, with N1.6 billion while N1.53 billion was also voted for international trips at for the Presidency during same period.
In all, a total sum of N24,835,805,231 was earmarked for the Office of the President which came under State House Operations and made up of N2,861,041,921 for overhead and N21,974,763,310 for capital expenditure.
Under the expenditure, the State House was expected to continue the ongoing replacement of vehicles and spares with the sum of N1, 600,000,000; international travels was allocated N1,533,464,208 while N400,000,000 was proposed for the replacement of villa telecommunications infrastructure during the year.
In addition, the State House headquarters got a budget proposal of N12,313,408,181 with the components being N1,736,064,934 for personnel, N2,860,063,433 for overhead and N7,717,279,814 for capital.
A further breakdown of the amount allocated to State House Headquarters indicated that salary would gulp N1,346,707,871; salaries and wages, N1,346,707,871; allowances and contributions, N389,357,063; allowances, N187,350,882; regular allowances, N187,350,882; social contributions, N202,006,181; NHIS, N67,335,394, and contributory pension – employer contribution, N134,670,787.
For recurrent expenditure, a further breakdown indicated that travel and transport- general would consume N162,253,681 for the fiscal year, made up of local transport and transport training, N31,415,288; local transport and transport others, N57,765,546; international travels and transport others, N73,072,847; utilities others, N503,209,802; fuel and lubricants others, N120,699,558 and miscellaneous, N1,023,679,451, among others.
The Office of the Chief of Staff to the President was allocated a total sum of N529, 416,737 made up of N470, 391,701 for overhead costs and N59, 025,036 for capital expenditure.
The Office of the Chief Security Officer to the President was allocated the sum of N392, 171,682 in the appropriation bill, made up of N111, 359,316 for overhead costs and N280, 812,366 for capital expenditure.
The details of the 2022 appropriation bill also showed that the State House Medical Centre was allocated a total sum of N687, 425,876 with N331, 730,212 and N355, 695,664 voted for overhead and capital expenditure, respectively.
State House Lagos Liaison Office had proposed for it in the 2022 budget, the total sum of N301,391,917 comprising N95,280,402 for overhead and N206,111,515 for expenditure while the Office of the Vice President was allocated a total amount of N1,183,011,298 made up of N1,048,618,092 for overhead and N134,393,206 for capital expenditure.
