Alleged 25% expenditure on NASS: Senate demands apology from CBN gov

THE Senate, on Monday, demanded an apology from the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, over his statement that “25 per cent of total annual overhead cost of the federal budget are allocated to lawmakers”

The upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly described the statement as embarrassing and unfounded, and was set to summon him before the end of the week.

Mallam Sanusi had, at the weekend, at the eighth annual lecture of the Igbinedion University, Okada, in Edo State, said over 25 percent of the Nigeria annual total overhead cost is expended on lawmakers.

The Senate, however, said the CBN governor was misquoted, adding that if not, we expected that he should retract “this very fallacious and very damaging report with an apology.”

Senate spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze, insisted that what Sanusi said was on the contrary, adding that “ I want to state categorically that it is not true. The total budget figure for the year 2010 as amended is N4,427,184,596, 534.

“The entire budget of the National Assembly for the year 2010 is N158,916,167,627. If you reduce this to mathematics, what the National Assembly get is 3.5 per cent of the entire budget.”