The national assembly on Thursday disclosed the details of its 2017 budget. This was after eight years of keeping it a guarded secret.
The total budget for the legislature this year is N125 billion. This is N10 billion higher than that of last year – of which details were not disclosed.
However, there seems to be a niggling issue with the budgetary allocation for cars. N237m was earmarked for the purchase of “motor vehicles”.
But when compared with previous spends on cars, the amount beggars belief – though it is far short from last year’s amount which was about N4.7bn.
In February 2016, the management of the national assembly took delivery of 10 princely cars for the senate president at the cost of about N330m. This was when the country was in the throes of recession.
And in November of the same year, the house of representatives took delivery of some Peugeot 508 series at the cost of about N3.6bn for its members.
In 2017, the national assembly has again budgeted N237m to buy more cars
