Jigawa assembly increases allocations for members’ guest houses, slashes education vote

The Jigawa State House of Assembly has slashed the allocations for the education sector in the state’s 2024 budget, while making generous provisions for the purchase of a new vehicle for the speaker, a new guest house in Abuja, renovation of members’ guest house in Kano State, and construction of imams’ residences.

The lawmakers significantly increased their various votes in the bidget proposals submitted by the state governor last month.

The assembly made up of 30 lawmakers increased its personnel cost by N190.9 million, from N390 million to N580.9 million, which they said, is meant for the implementation of the new consolidated salary structure for legislative staff.

The lawmakers also increased the assembly’s recurrent expenditure by over N1.5 billion; it increased the recurrent allocation from N2.7 billion to over N4.2 billion.

The allocations are part of the highlights of the about N298 billion budget proposals of Jigawa State submitted to the lawmakers on 14 November. The lawmakers deliberated on the proposals, increased their own allocations, and passed the budget on 21 December. The governor, Umar Namadi, assented to the budget on 28 December.

The chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Ibrahim Adamu, said the assembly increased its allocations for projects and other asset acquisition by N863.5 million, from over N1.2 billion to over N2.1 billion. Of the amount, Mr Adamu said, the assembly would purchase members’ guest house in Abuja with N500 million and construction of Public Hearing Hall with N185 millions.

Other allocations, according to the budget document seen by PREMIUM TIMES are for the renovation and furnishing of Kano guest house for the lawmakers at the cost of N47 million, construction of houses for the imam and his deputy at the legislative quarters at N30 million, and furnishing of the office of the clerk and three of his deputies at N15 million.

The lawmakers also appropriated over N36.5 million for the “completion” of the mosque and Islamiyya school at the legislative quarters, and N100 million for the procurement of one SUV Toyota Prado for the speaker, Haruna Aliyu.

The document explained that the personnel cost budget for the House of Assembly Service Commission was increased by N75.6 million, from N7.2 million to over N82.8 million. The recurrent cost for the commission was also increased by N14 million, from N116 million to N130 million.

As House of Assembly’s allocation rises, education sector’s vote drops

While the lawmakers increased their allocations to over N2.76 billion, they slashed the budget for the education sector by over N1.21 billion. For instance, the budget for Islamic education for Primary and Junior Secondary Schools was reduced by over N314 million, from N1.33 billion to N1,015,398,000. The deducted amount was allocated for the renovation of Islamiyya schools under the 2024 constituency project.

Allocations for Nomadic Education Projects (structures and facilities) were reduced by N50 million from N283 million to N233 million. The vote for the Ministry of Education, headquarters and zonal offices (running costs), was reduced by N50 million, from N350 million to N300 million.

The votes for the development and maintenance of senior secondary school structures and facilities were reduced by N50 million from over N2 billion to over N1.99 billion. In the case of the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (World Bank Counter fund), the votes for it was reduced by N500 million, from over N6 billion to over N5.6 billion.

Also, slashed was the recurrent cost for the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology. It was reduced by N50 million, from over N4.1 billion to over N4 billion.

PREMIUM TIMES analysis of the lawmaker’s budget shows that the lawmakers’ allocations for their luxury comes at a time residents of the state mostly rural dwellers are bearing the brunt of economic hardship and galloping inflation that followed the removal of subsidy on petrol earlier in May.

Examples of such insensitive allocations include the proposed purchase of a N500 million guest house for the members in Abuja, despite that there is an existing state’s guest house for top government officials including the lawmakers in the capital city; and the purchase of N100 million vehicle for the speaker in a state that ranked third poorest in the country.

The lawmakers’ arbitrary increment of their budgets to over N2.76 billion is also at the expense of about 3,415 poorly funded public schools with over 1.4 million enrollment in both basic and post-basic levels.

The lawmakers’ budget is also insensitive to the plight of a high number of out-of-school children roaming the streets in the state with the fifth largest number of out-of-school children in the federation. About 784,391 children are said to be out of school in the state, according to UNESCO.

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In the face of poor allocations to a sector as key as education, lawmaker’s show of appetite for spending more for their luxury could be said to be wastefulness and insensitivity to the plight of the poor people of the state. More financial investments are needed to uplift the living standard of millions of residents which outweighs the comfort of the 30 members of the assembly and a total of 152 legislative staff members in the state.