Constituency projects: House of Representatives get N10.9bn, each member pockets N100m

The 109 members of the House of Representatives receive annually N10.9 billion with each lawmaker getting an envelope of N100 million, according to Rep. Kwamoti Laori.

Laori, who represents Numan/Demsa/Lamurde Federal Constituency of Adamawa State in the National Assembly, disclosed that the allocation of N100 million was to facilitate the execution of projects in their constituencies.

“When you go into our core mandates, we are not supposed to be involved in infrastructures and provision of basic necessities to our constituents.

“But because of the lacuna of poor budgeting procedure, which has failed in tying policy plans to needs assessment, we have to step in and fill in the gaps that government has left open in terms of service delivery to our constituents.

“In terms of the money, every member of the House of Representatives is given an envelope of N100m. This money is used to execute the popular constituency intervention project,” said the former Deputy Speaker of Adamawa House of Assembly.

“Regrettably, due to poor budgetary implementation, House of Representatives members hardly get more than N80 million of the allocated N100 million.”

Persecondnews reports that the lawmaker spoke in Yola, Adamawa capital, after inaugurating some constituency projects.

They include solar-powered boreholes, a computer centre, a town hall and examination halls in Lafia, Demsa, Ndem, Imburu, Bali and Kpasham, constituencies of Lamurde/Demsa/Numan council areas.

On federal government’s budget performance, Laori said the government has never achieved more than 40 per cent budget performance in past years.

He urged the government to restructure the country’s bureaucracy for more efficient services.

“This country has never achieved more than 40 per cent budget performance. You can quote me anywhere.

“You have budgets enacted year-in and year-out, being repeated and bloated and yet not being achieved. Because of our projections we don’t follow them.

“We bloat the system and we don’t prioritise,” Laori told newsmen.

The lawmaker blamed the country’s poor economic growth on what he called poor budget implementation and under-performance by the federal government.