A former Vice-President of the World Bank, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday urged federal lawmakers to organise a public hearing on their budgetary allocation and remuneration.
She said instead of verbal attacks, the lawmakers should come up with data to controvert her disclosure that N1 trillion had been voted for the National Assembly in the last eight years.
Ezekwesili, who insisted on the facts in her presentation at a Roundtable on Cost of Governance on Monday, said she is ready to appear before a public hearing.
She expressed regrets that members of the National Assembly, without the benefit of her full speech, strangely chose to haul verbal assaults and threats at her.
Ezekwesili said: “My presentation approached the topic more broadly, by calling attention to the fundamentally unsustainable economic structure that has caused Nigeria’s development over the last 53 years to lag behind those of countries with similar political history with attendant high poverty level of 69% of our citizens according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
“As part of the aspect of my presentation that touched on management of Public Finance, I provided eight years data on budgetary allocations or transfers to the National Assembly.
“The data in question is publicly available information from the Ministry of Finance which reveals that the allocations to the National Assembly known as Statutory Transfers between 2005 and 2013 were approximately One Trillion Naira as follows:
2005 (N54.79billion); 2006 (N54.79billion)2007 (N66.4billion);2008 (N114.39billion);2009 (N158.92billion); 2010 (N 150billion);2011 (N150billion);2012 (N150billion); and 2013 (N150billion).
“I also provided information available in a recent global comparison of legislators’ remuneration across the world recently published by the United Kingdom based The Economist magazine. I stated that the report alleged that Nigerian federal legislators with a basic salary of $189,500 per annum (N30.6m) were the highest paid lawmakers in the world.
“In reaction to various versions of news media report of my speech a number of members of the House of Representatives and Senators speaking as spokesmen of the National Assembly (NASS) and perhaps without the benefit of my full speech, strangely chose to haul verbal assaults and threats at me. “
She faulted the National Assembly for not tolerating dissension on its budget.