Sunday Aborisade in Abuja
The National Assembly’s Joint Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, said yesterday that the executive arm of the federal government increased the yearly budgetary allocation of the Judiciary by N30 billion in the 2023 fiscal year because of a leaked memo by the Justices of the Supreme Court.
Chairman of the joint Committee, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC Ekiti Central), stated this when the Executive Secretary of National Judicial Council (NJC), Mr. Ahmed Gambo Saleh defended the Judiciary 2023 budget proposal.
Bamidele said the increment in the annual budget of the Judiciary from N120 billion to N150 billion was due to the leaked memo from the Justices bordering on poor welfare packages, a few months ago.
He, however, said the increment from N120 billion to N150 billion for the Judiciary was not enough to cater for the welfare of various stakeholders in the arm of government.
He said, “We stand to consider the content of the leaked memo from the Justices of the Supreme Court as a wake-up call or clarion call to comprehensively address the welfare issues and well-being of Judges, Judicial Officers and staff of the Judiciary, as well as judicial apparatus and infrastructure of Courts.
“Otherwise, poor working conditions and lack of the requisite welfare will affect the overall performance of the Nigerian Judiciary. I do hope the budget you are going to present before us today has addressed most of these salient issues.
“Wth the N150 billion budget proposal for 2023 fiscal year against N120 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, it is not yet Uhuru for the judiciary because the judiciary still needs much more than that to operate and be able to address, adequately, the welfare of our judicial officers and staff of the judiciary.”
Saleh lamented that though the NJC has been able to assess 80 per cent of its 2022 budget, the inflation rate in the county had adverse effects on the budget performance of the Judicial Council in the country.
He disclosed that based on prevailing challenges facing the NJC, the budget proposal submitted to the Ministry of Finance was N338 billion, but was given the envelope of N150 billion.
He said, “Although there is an increase of N30 billion in the budget compared to last year’s budget of N120 billion, but in the real sense of it, there is no serious increase in the budget considering the level of inflation in the country.
“The appropriation for the judiciary in this subsisting fiscal year is N120 billion. It is gratifying that out of this sum, we are so far able to assess 80 per cent of the fund.
“That notwithstanding, the current economic situation has adversely affected our budget implementation and performance because the subsisting budget was passed at a benchmark of N580 to a dollar as against over N700 it is now.
“If we need to achieve a milestone this year, we have to make an additional provision of over 20 per cent on the votes for us to be able to achieve that milestone,” he said.
