MPs to spend N15 billion on foreign trips , In 2009
Written by Tashikalmah Hallah & Turaki A. Hassan
FRIDAY, 19 DECEMBER 2008

Nigeria National Assembly
The 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representative will spend a total N15 billion on foreign and local trips in 2009, Daily Trust learnt in Abuja.


The Senators are to spend N1.85 billion for international trips and another N3.2 billion on local trips under the 2009 appropriation bill as presented to the National Assembly by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua.
On its part, the House of House Representatives is to spend N5.062 billion on international trips and another N5.46 billion on local travels, thereby bringing the total travels expenditure of the lower chamber of the National Assembly to N11 billion in 2009.

As proposed in the draft copy of the 2009 appropriation bill, the Senators will gulp N783 million naira on refreshment and meals while the House of Representatives has been allocated N3.11 billion for its refreshment and meals in 2009.

Similarly, the Senators are to get N800 million as sitting allowances next year, while their counterparts in the House of Representatives will get N2billion as sitting allowances in the 2009 legislative year.

These expenditures are coming at a time when the country is experiencing huge financial deficits due to the crash in crude oil prices in the international market. The national budget is expected to run a deficit of about N200 billion next year.

While presenting the 2009 appropriation bill to a joint session of the National Assembly earlier this month, President Umaru Musa Yar’adua said his government was going to adopt serious austerity measures in a desperate effort to reduce to the barest minimum all unnecessary and extra spending in 2009 because of the crashing oil prices.

“The recent volatility of the oil price is apparent in the unprecedented decline of prices from record highs of about US$147/barrel in July this year to current prices of about US$50/barrel, and there is no guarantee that prices will not further decline despite OPEC’s recent mitigating efforts. We therefore must adopt a prudent outlook that does not invest misplaced confidence in the expectation of unrealistically high prices,” Yar’adua had said.

According to Yar’adua, excessive expenditure on international travels and training has been curbed by 50% while expenditure on local travels was slashed by 25%.

http://www.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1273&Itemid=87

Welldone our dear lawbreakers.

the prayer of millions of Nigerians will not be in vain!

this is absurd

can u imagine?
these are the guyz that want to spend N15bn roaming about,
they will not finish well

According to fela, Naija people will only LUKU LUKU like luke and TALKU TALKU like thomas.


**********may d days of all these greedy politicians resemble that of SANI ABACHA************

My God! With all the hunger in the land? With pensioners dying daily like flies because of unpaid pensions? With rotten infrastructure starrring us in the face? With the poor salary of civil servants? Kai, they must be crazy! The funny thing is that all these disHonorables have special prayer warriors like pastors and imams/alfas that pray for their protection and success in lootingoffice. Lord have mercy on Nigeria!

this cannot be real? where the heck are they going to?

This lawbreakers makers can't fail to amuse, despite the poor state of the economy,
high level poverty, total collapse of infrastructure, hunger, they still deem it fit to travel abroad
and enjoy what their counterpart abroad laboured to deliver to their people.
They shamefully parade their ill-gotten affluence abroad all in the name of working.

Let them break the C.B.N, and add more to the 15 Billions they already got, fools.
Public office is the last refuge of the incompetent, simple.

what else do they do?, other than to waste public funds, that would have been used to provide basic necesities for the impoverished masses of Nigeria.

This lawbreakers are really MAD oooo. May God purnish them and all their families one by one. OMG.