#OpenNASS: Nigerians task Saraki, Dogara to end NASS budget secrecy

Nigerians are reviving the #OpenNASS campaign which seeks to bring an end to budget secrecy in the parliament.

As the tenure of the eighth National Assembly draws near to its end, Nigerians have taken to social media to mount last-minute pressure on Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to abolish the budget secrecy.

#OpenNASS campaign is spearheaded by BudgIT and other civil society organisations in the country.

BudgIt had in a statement, said “Nigeria’s National Assembly, an arm of government that supposedly upholds accountability, has remained an impregnable black box which defies public scrutiny is an irony of all ironies.”

The current assembly published a breakdown of its budget only once, in 2017, after much pressure from the public through the #OpenNASS campaign.

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BudgIT revealed on Twitter that between 2003 and 2018, NASS budget “skyrocketed from N23.3 billion to N139.5 billion, with zero accountability”.

It added, “Overall, @nassnigeria has less than 10,000 staff but its yearly allocation is higher than annual budgets of 21 states with more than 4 million people combined.”

“Aside from the lawmakers being ranked as world’s top-paid legislators, at public expense, the annual budget of the National Assembly is a one-line statutory transfer which is neither reviewed by any authority nor, at very least, made accessible to the public, thus enabling unbridled corruption,” BudgIT stated.

“At this age of digital governance plus global calls for transparency in public institutions, it is a national disrepute that the parliament has refused to eschew anti-democratic practices, as it continues to bury its yearly allocations under the hallowed chambers.

“More disappointing is the fact that, despite Nigeria’s membership in Open Government Partnership and tons of pledges by Senate President Bukola Saraki to run an ‘open NASS’, the National Assembly immediately relapsed into its default setting after a breakdown of the budget was made public in 2017, thanks to public pressure.

“Asserting that the 2017 record must be made permanent, we are making a renewed demand from the leadership of the eighth assembly to fully redeem its promise. Starting again with the 2019 budget, a line-by-line breakdown of the NASS allocation must be made public going forward.

“It is worth the call that Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara should leave behind a great legacy, one that history would never forget, by truly and finally opening NASS,” BudgIT said.

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