Dogara Slams El-Rufai, ‘Tell Nigerians How You Spend Your Security Votes’

El-Rufai had on Wednesday, at the closing ceremony of National Assembly Management Retreat held in Kaduna, dared the lawmakers to make public their earnings.

The Governor said, “It is important that the National Assembly do something about its image. No transparency in your (NASS) budget; nobody knows your budget or how much you get paid.

“Publications are made about your salaries and allowances that I don’t believe are true but cannot be defended because there is no transparency about your budget, personnel cost and so on and so forth.

“I think you can do something about that to clear all the rumours and remove all the evil stories that are largely untrue.”

But Dogara, in his response, suggested that it is hypocritical of Governor El-Rufai to demand that the National Assembly makes public its budgetary allocation when Governors like himself have constantly concealed details of their security votes expenses.

“I will like to challenge him (El-Rufai) to champion this cause for transparency in the budgetary process from the National Assembly to other arms of government beginning with the judiciary,” the Speaker said.

“What do they spend monthly as security votes, and if they can publish what happens to local government funds under their jurisdictions, that will help our discussion going forward.”

“When, for instance, public discussions on funding of the legislature are being made, the entire bureaucracy is often completely discountenanced.”

“No consideration is given to the fact that this is a special bureaucracy saddled with a multitude of ‘masters’ who must be equally served in addition to service to the nation,” he explained.