by Dyepkazah Shibayan

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.

Thecableng