The Federal Government’s statutory allocations to the National Assembly (NASS) and the National Judicial Council (NJC) in 2024 hit a total sum of N564 billion in October, findings by Saturday PUNCH have revealed.
In February, the House of Representatives pushed for five per cent of the country’s yearly budget to be allocated to the federal legislature and judiciary.
The Green Chamber initiated a process to amend Nigeria’s Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007 by inserting Section 54(a), which would “make provision for the allocation of five per cent each to the National Assembly and the Federal Judiciary in the Appropriation Act for each year”.
Before then, the National Assembly had raised its 2024 budgetary allocation from N197.93 billion to N344.85 billion, marking the highest-ever budgetary allocation in the assembly’s history.
This information is contained in a document titled House of Representatives Federal Republic of Nigeria Order Paper, dated Saturday, 30 December 2023.
According to the document, federal lawmakers also raised the NJC’s statutory transfers from N165 billion to N341.63 billion
Checks by Saturday PUNCH, using GovSpend—a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses Federal Government spending—revealed that both the National Assembly management and NJC received a combined statutory allocation of N564,432,524,592 from the national treasury between January and October 2024.
Statutory transfers are funds allocated to government institutions as mandated by law and protected by the constitution.
These allocations allow such institutions to determine their budgets independently.
Between January and June, the National Assembly management received a total of N172 billion The first payment was made on 6 February, followed by another on 29 February. Subsequent tranches were paid on 28 March, 3 May, 28 May, and 25 June.
In addition to this, the federal legislature also received N28.7 billion as statutory transfers in July, August, and October, totaling N86 billion.
In July, the legislature further received N50 billion in two tranches (2 and 22 July 2024) from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation as part of funds for capital expenditures.
This brings the total received by federal lawmakers to N308 billion over the review period.
Similarly, between January and June, the NJC received allocations totaling N170.8 billion. Additionally, it was allocated N28,464,811,603 in each of July, August, and October.
This indicates that the federal judiciary received a total of N256 billion from the national treasury over the ten months.
The summation of the N308 billion allocated to the National Assembly and the N256 billion allocated to the NJC equals the N564 billion received by these two government organs.
