The Conference of
National Assembly Legislative Aides (CONASSLA), a forum of current and former
aides to members of the national assembly, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari
and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to reveal their running costs.
They
also asked to know what Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, ministers, heads
of agencies and parastatals of the government receive in running costs.
In
a statement on Saturday, Abdullahi Al-Mustapha, chairman of CONASSLA, said the
executive should reveal its running costs in-line with the transparency agenda
of the federal government.
CONASSLA
said the information should be published “in seven days”.
Mustapha
said failure on the part of the executive to do so would be an infringement on
the trust of the citizens who elected the government to curb excessive
spending.
“This
request stems from openness of the national assembly in recent times, with the
disclosure of the running costs of senators and the inexplicable 2018 budgetary
provisions that show that the president alone, has budgeted over N900million
for the running costs of his cars in 2018,” the statement read.
“The
national security adviser (NSA) has budgeted over N1.14billion for the cleaning
of his office in 2018; and the minister of transport has budgeted
N10billion for his transportation vehicles in 2018.
“These
figures, when combined with the fact that the Directorate of State Security
(DSS) intends on spending over N2.2billion on social media running costs, and
the minister of communication, has owned up to receiving $800,000 in estacode,
begs the question – how much does the executive spend in running costs?
“We
call on the executive branch to publish the full list of running costs of all
the offices and individuals within its purview in seven days.”
The
call for the executive to reveal its running cost is sequel to the revelation
of Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, who said lawmakers in the
upper legislative chamber receive N13.5 million monthly as running costs.
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