Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has expressed disappointment over the payslip
released by Speaker Yakubu Dogara as he challenged him to publish National
Assembly budget.
El-Rufai has fired back at the House of Representatives and its Speaker, Hon.
Yakubu Dogara over the National Assembly budget controversy as he accused him of sharing public funds.
According to a report by The Nation, the House of Representatives had on Tuesday
descended heavily on Governor El-Rufai for challenging them to make their budget public, saying that what El-Rufai himself
declared was not his security votes, but Kaduna State Security budget, daring him to publish his personal security vote like they
have published the Speaker’s salary’s pay slip.
Responding to questions about his security vote, El-Rufai said, he does not have security votes aside the security budget of the state
he earlier published, which according to him is properly expended and accounted for.
He lambasted the Dogara for his refusal to release details of the National Assembly budget.
In a statement he issued through his spokesman, Samuel Aruwan in Kaduna on Thursday, El-Rufai also faulted the salary pay slip of Hon. Yakubu Dogara, saying, “the
figures in the pay slips presented for the Honorable Speaker are in stark contrast to the declaration by The Economist regarding the earnings of NASS members. One of the claims cannot be right”.
Talking about security votes, El-Rufai said, contrary to general belief, he does not have a security vote. “The Kaduna State Government has presented details of its security budget. What was presented represents the only security vote for the entire government. As the figures show,
there is no security vote for the Governor of Kaduna State.
“This may be a shock to those used to the notion of security votes as barely disguised
slush funds, but we do not operate such a system in Kaduna. Our budgets specify what
is voted as assistance to security agencies, and its expenditure is properly recorded and accounted for. These are not monies
given to or spent by the governor.
“If the leaders of the NASS have security votes allocated to or personally collected by
them, they might wish to disclose such. Our security spending does not operate like the
NASS system of sharing public funds in such an opaque fashion that even NASS members
do not know how their entire budget is broken down or what the leadership gets as its ‘running costs’.
“The figures in the pay slips presented for the Honorable Speaker are in stark contrast
to the declaration by The Economist regarding the earnings of NASS members.
One of the claims cannot be right.
“The House of Representatives has
responded with predictable tetchiness to a simple and clear demand that details of the
National Assembly budget be made public. It is inconceivable that an important institution, vested by the Constitution with
representation, lawmaking and oversight powers, has for at least seven years ignored
the imperative to set an example of transparency, despite being severally urged to do so.
“Despite the rush to personal attacks on a matter of public policy, we cannot allow the
enthronement of the republic of distraction.
It is important that everyone who is interested in protecting and advancing democratic discourse should stay focused
on the issue. It is strange that persons entrusted with high office will justify their abdication of the responsibility to be transparent in such cavalier fashion. We
don’t believe that most of our esteemed legislators will construe a demand for transparency as aimed at undermining the
National Assembly.
“However, notwithstanding the intemperate response of the spokesman of the House of
Representatives, the demand that the NASS budget be made public will not go away. It is not personal, and there is a strong civic constituency that is demanding it. The sooner all of us in public life recognized that
the game has changed, and that segments of civil society and indeed everyday citizens
of Nigeria, are much more aware, astute and advanced than the state of our politics, the
better for our democratic health.
“Since the NASS began conceiving.
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