The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio says he has never seen the budget of the parliament he leads despite occupying the position of the Chairman of the National Assembly.
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 NASS chambers over persistent technical faults with the newly installed audio system.
Responding to the debate, Akpabio said lawmakers should first understand the parliament’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 a former Speaker of the House of Representatives who’s now the senator representing Sokoto south, Aminu Tambuwal, 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, to which Tambuwal responded in the affirmative.
“You see. That’s the point. So, the fault lies here in the senate,” the Senate President continued, disclosing that he 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.
Akpabio then called for the Senate and the House of Representatives to 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.
“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.
