“I’ve Never Seen National Assembly Budget As Senate President” – Akpabio

Senate President Godswill Akpabio says he has never seen the national assembly’s budget despite presiding over the upper legislative chamber.

Despite billions of naira spent refurbishing the chambers, lawmakers continue to grapple with malfunctioning microphones and faulty electronic voting devices, forcing both chambers to adopt manual voting on key constitutional amendments.

Akpabio spoke on Thursday during plenary after the senate stepped down a motion seeking to review the legislature’s internal procurement process and establish an internal tender’s board for contract awards.

The motion, sponsored by Sunday Karimi, senator representing Kogi west, came less than 24 hours after the senate president threatened to sanction the contractor responsible for renovating the national assembly chambers over persistent technical faults with the newly installed audio system.

Responding to the debate, Akpabio said lawmakers should first understand the national assembly’s budget and spending before considering procurement reforms.

“We can set up a small committee to work with the management of both chambers… because personally I’ve never seen the budget of the national assembly,” he said.

Akpabio then turned to Aminu Tambuwal, senator representing Sokoto south and former speaker of the house of representatives, asking whether the leadership of the green chamber had access to its budget.

“You were a speaker… maybe in the house of representatives, they show you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tambuwal replied.

“You see. That’s the point. So, the fault lies here in the senate,” Akpabio said.

Akpabio said the senate president has little involvement in the management of the legislature’s finances.

“The way I do things, not that I’m nonchalant, it’s as if they make it a closed thing, and that the senate president doesn’t have anything to do with the management’s funds and all that,” he said.

He added that the senate and the house of representatives should jointly examine how the national assembly’s budget is allocated before debating procurement reforms.

“We should start with ourselves, and we should get the two chambers to know exactly what is going on,” he said.

“We should also debate and understand the budget. We should know how much is coming, what is going to where, and what is going to where.”

He said Karimi ought to have discussed the proposal with him, the clerk to the national assembly (CNA) and the management before bringing it to the floor.
“Talking about internal tenders board and all that, should it be in the public glare before we clean up our house?” he asked.

“We should start with ourselves, and we should get the two chambers to know exactly what is going on. We should also debate and understand the budget. We should know how much is coming, what is going to where and what is going to where. This motion is premature.”

Akpabio then asked Karimi to withdraw the motion, and the senator complied.

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