The Kogi House of Assembly on Tuesday passed the N130.54 billion Appropriation Bill tagged “Budget of Accelerated Recovery” into law. Newsmen report that the House considered the bill Clause-by-Clause at the “Committee of the Whole” of the House at plenary in Lokoja. Aderonke Aro (APC-Yagba West) and Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Budget Monitoring and Economic Planning, presented the committee’s report for consideration. Aro declared that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with genuine reasons for adjustments in their allocations were taken care of during the defence of their respective budgets. In the budget presented to the House on Dec. 1, Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi had said that the budget was indicative of the assessment of the amount the state could generate on its ow...
Nigerian National Assembly spends billions of naira on constitution review
The perennial constitution amendment exercise by the National Assembly is characterised by proposals that keep resurfacing despite gulping billions of naira yearly, an analysis has shown. The federal parliament had from the 5th to the current 9th National Assembly made several attempts to amend some provisions of the 1999 Constitution to no avail. At every session, the parliament officially spends N1 billion shared equally between the Senate and the House of Representatives. There are reports that the lawmakers spend more than what is appropriated for the exercise. While some amendments were successful, several others suffered serial failures but kept appearing in new proposals. Considering the huge spending, lawyers and civil society groups have pointed out that no significant amendments ...