The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, said on Thursday that the National Assembly has reduced its overhead in the 2015 budget by 25 percent in response to the economic realities in the country.Ekweremadu said the action would also help to boost the capital expenditure quotient in the 2015 fiscal year. He said,
This year, because our money is on first line charge and comes as statutory transfer, the executive could not have tampered with it. They brought our overhead the way it should be in the 2015 Appropriation Bill.
“But on our own, we in the National Assembly looked at the state of the economy and decided to cut our overhead cost by 25 percent. We challenged the executive to go back and do the same.
“They accepted the challenge and cut further their overhead budget. So, we are hoping that Nigerians would see a remarkable improvement in the capital-overhead ratio in the 2015 budget.”
Unfortunately, we do not know exactly in absolute terms how much this is.