N70B to National Assembly, a Wasteful Expenditure- NULGE President, Ambali Urges FG to Cut Down Expenses
President, of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Comrade Hakeem Ambali has appealed to the Federal Government to cut down on the expenses allocated to the National Assembly saying, “It’s a wasteful expenditure”.
Comrade Ambali Hakeem, who is the chief servant of local government workers in Nigeria told LEADERSHIP in Ilorin in an interview that in cushioning the effects of the removal of oil subsidy, the Nigerian government should cut down the size of governance.
“We can’t continue to go on with retinue of aides, convoy of vehicles of 15 to100 and you are saying that Nigerians should tighten their belts when you are going about in flying ‘agbada’.
“So, the government should cut down the expenses, the allocation of N70 billion to the National Assembly is a wasteful expenditure. It’s unnecessary, they are already well-paid and well-remunerated; you can see that in their opulence.
“That money can go a long way if it is reinvested in the educational sector so that primary to secondary schools will have free education while university education should be subsidized.”
He also noted that switching to an alternative energy supply to power several homes and offices, providing some agricultural equipment and fertilizers at subsidised rates for the farmers, and also providing local security, and additionally, a consideration on the part of the government to increase workers’ minimum wage by 300 percent would go a long way to ease the pain of many Nigerians as a result of the subsidy removal.
He said, “Why we demand for that is that, to use a small generator now you need to buy a fuel of nothing less than N3,000 and multiply N3,000 by 90 days, it is N90,000 and that doesn’t cater for your feeding and transportation.
“So, for us we believe that when fuel was at about N165 per litre, we were earning N30,000 and now that it has gone to over N600, it is reasonable to move the minimum wage up by 300 percent.”
Moreover, he noted how the operation of compressed natural gas (CNG) could benefit Nigerians if they looked into it.
“We have large volume of natural gas that are being wasted and to make it worse we are laying some pipelines now to channel it to some other countries whereby Nigerian market is yet to open up. Our vehicles should be converted to be running on CNG rather than being run on petroleum, this will cushion the effect of the subsidy as it will bring the price of litre of gas to about N100 , which is affordable and it is more durable; it is clean energy supply.
In his final words during the session, he stated, “It is only the living that enjoys the dividends of democracy. Government should be about people’s welfare”.
Credit: LEADERSHIP
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