National Assembly budget, management in focus: an exploratory intervention by THE CONCLAVE Board of Editors

No fewer than 2,000 Nigerians throng the National Assembly (NASS) complex located in the Three Arms zone, Abuja, on daily basis, from Monday to Friday, to visit their representatives either in the political wing, to wit: House of Representatives or Senate, or the administrative wing-.NASS bureaucracy. The wear and tear that these visits cause the NASS facilities, the furniture and the toilets are quite significant.

When this number of visitors is added to the 109 senators, 360 members of the House of Representatives, over 4,000 legislative aides, close to 5,000 staff members in the NASS bureaucracy, the totality of human activities and exertions have always stretched the facilities to their limits, eventually occasioning maintenance. This has routinely become the remit of the management or bureaucracy.

Over the years, management has been saddled with the responsibility of catering to the needs of the institution, the staff members, the lawmakers, legislative aides, utilities, and other commonplace services that require prompt attention and action within the ecology of the National Assembly. The National Assembly is a massive complex of imposing structures to behold.

The construction by Julius Berger, funded by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has become the collective endeavour of both the NASS through the management and the FCTA through the Federal Capital Development Authorities (FCDA). Having delivered the massive structures-the White House, comprising the Senate, House of Representatives Chambers, and offices of lawmakers, the offices of the Clerk to the National Assembly and the Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly, among others, the Senate and House of Reps’ extensions comprising the newer offices of the lawmakers, and the NASS extension, housing the offices of the majority of the staff members of NASS bureaucracy, the responsibility of ensuring the functionality of the structures becomes the administrative imperative of the Directorate of Estate and Works.

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The maintenance of the structures, the beautification of the ecology of the complex, the security fixtures and other considerations, which may appear minor, but which are important to the overall health and/or well being of the environment and the structures therein all conduce to the management’s constant, tedious responsibility. This maintenance responsibility, coupled with the necessity by the management to cater to the smooth operation of the lawmakers and their aides, requires adequate funding in line with inflationary trends as regularly dictated by the outlook of the nation’s economy.

But over the years, the budgeting processes and considerations would appear to have always discounted these facts. The 2025 N54.99 trillion has sustained the culture and/or tradition of inadequate funding of the NASS bureaucracy. It is indeed a twist of irony that the bureaucracy is, by the perception of THE CONCLAVE not being adequately funded in spite of the fact that the National Assembly has the constitutional vires to consider and approve budgetary estimates as presented to it by the Executive arm of government. While we responsibly refrain from deploying the now notorious word-“padding”, one wonders why the National Assembly has not considered the necessity to make the budget of the NASS bureaucracy as competitive as it should be on some comparative terms, or is it that it is being constrained to do so because of likely Executive “blackmail”?

The NASS bureaucracy is particularly saddled with a heavy overhead. Salary increases, allowances, training and retraining of its workforce and other necessaries. For instance, when compared with the National Judiciary Service Commission, which got a humongous N521,625,739,370 billion in the just passed 2025 budget, the National Assembly can be safely surmised to have got a paltry N344,852,880,669 billion. At worst, they should have been at par in their allocations, sans argument of the numerical strength of the workforces that both manage, et al.

Besides, like the federal government itself, the National Assembly owes arrears to contractors and other service providers. This has been characteristic of the institution for years. There is the necessity to clear the backlog of debts through a high and realistic rise in budgetary allocation henceforth and to enable NASS bureaucracy to be atop of funding its responsibilities much more comfortably than just keeping afloat.

Given the strategic place it occupies in the structure of government at the federal level, the National Assembly, which provides covering for 109 senators, 360 members of the house of representatives, over 4,000 legislative aides, close to 5,000 staff and other affiliates deserves special attention and should have benefitted from an improved budgetary provision in the neighborhood of N700 billion or more to enable it comfortably answer all basic and fundamental questions.

Besides budgetary approvals, the imperativeness of timely releases to the National Assembly of funds approved should not be discounted. The National Assembly is on the first-line charge to the Consolidated Revenue of the Federation. Arms of government on the first-line charge should not have difficulties or delays accessing their funds. What is the essence of the first-line charge if it cannot mitigate the rigours of bureaucratic delays in the release(s) of budgetary provisions and approvals? THE CONCLAVE is of the opinion that delay in the release of funds should not be a feature anymore in the circumstance.

Again, should it be out of place to deploy key heads of directorates in the National Assembly in the process of bolstering overwhelmed political leaderships in running both chambers, particularly in the areas of formulation, passage and oversight of budgets? This could help the leadership of the appropriation committees in both chambers to properly redirect key projects to members’ constituencies and districts, appropriating necessary funds for their execution, while not forgetting the “peace” of NASS institution that provides the constitutional ambience to carry out their duties.

Again, THE CONCLAVE believes it is time the NASS bureaucracy began to make strong cases for adequate budgetary provisions for the running of the institution. Unlike the previous administrations, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a lover of democracy, having himself been once a member of the Senate. He knows how the institution works. As a strong advocate for the rule of law, a supporter and promoter of democratic and legislative systems, he would be interested in ensuring that the National Assembly is well funded. The NASS should take advantage of Tinubu’s understanding and liberality to raise the funding bar.

In fact, the federal legislature’s financial independence and buoyancy will be a fillip to the Executive-Legislative relationship on President Tinubu’s watch. The culture of annually pegging NASS budget to an appropriation and funding template that us at best inadequate should be dismantled forthwith. President Tinubu will be consensus ad idem with us on this position. Going forward, therefore, National Assembly and its entire leadership, across political and bureaucratic wings, should hold a series of meetings and/or engagements leading to the presentation of budgets, where the needs of the assembly can be discussed, and their respective proposals are in pari materia with each other’s to avoid or mitigate a continuation of this sad reality of a pegged budgetary proposal and approval template, where NASS, is not well funded to run its institution effectively and efficiently. Will the NASS leaderships be able to consummate this suggestion and others that are ancillary to it? The answer is, without a doubt, in the womb of time.