2024 budget: Hold your reps accountable for constituency allowance; I received N266m, says Senator Abaribe

2024 budget: Hold your reps accountable for constituency allowance; I received N266m, says Senator Abaribe

 

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, representing Abia South in the Senate, has clarified that he received N266 million from the 2024 budget as constituency allowance for his senatorial zone and not N500 million as claimed by one of his colleagues.

He also challenged Nigerians to demand from their senators and lawmakers representing their areas at the end of the year what they have done with the money allocated to them as constituency allowance.

He was responding to a statement by a senator representing Cross River North, Senator Jarigbe Agom-Jarigbe, during plenary on Tuesday that some senior senators had received N500 million each from the 2024 budget.

This came on the heel of an ongoing controversy over an allegation of budget padding made by Senator Abdul Ningi in an interview with BBC Hausa Service.

Ningi had earlier accused the Senate of padding the 2024 budget with N3.7 trillion.

Speaking during in an interview with ARISE TV, Senator Abaribe said despite him being a senior senator, he had not received the N500 million claimed by Jarigbe.

He said, “I never got N500 million. I think Jarigbe tried to clarify his statement. He came back subsequently to say, ‘Ningi told me I was given’, because he didn’t get. He’s also a ranking Senator.

“So, I think that at the end of the day, what you see really is that…well, I’m an APGA Senator–the only APGA Senator in the Senate. Maybe being a minority of the minority, they didn’t consider me worthy of being given. Nobody told me about that money.

“I wanted to say that, without equivocation, that both Jarigbe and the Senate leader tried to clarify this issue. Number one: nobody was given 500 million. Even a few of my colleagues called me to say, ‘Ahh you get N500 million we dey beg you for money but you no wan give us one naira out of it.’

“Can you imagine? So, of course I got N266 million for what’s called Zonal Intervention Fund which Nigerians call “constituency project” funds.”

Abaribe declared that it is the responsibility of the citizens to question their lawmakers at the end of a budget circle what was allocated to their area and the projects executed.

“This thing takes a budget circle which is 12 months. So if at the end of 12 months you don’t see what’s in the budget for your constituency, then you hold your representatives, whether in the Reps or Senate, culpable,” he said.