Governor Nasir El- Rufai of Kaduna State has published his monthly salary which reflects a gross pay of N555,926.74 and take home pay of N470,521.74
The governor also published his security vote and budgets of both the state and local governments.
His action is a direct response to the challenge posed to him by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to make public what he gets as security vote and local government funds.
The monies, he said, reflected what the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission approved as the salary and allowances of every state governor.
El- Rufai said in a statement on Monday by his media aide, Samuel Aruwan, that the budgets of all state governments in Nigeria were detailed out and were usually presented under the headings of personnel costs, overhead, and capital expenditure.
But that of National Assembly was a single line item of over N100 billion that divulged zero information or details.
“On our part, the Kaduna State government has consistently made public all its budget details.
“In 2016, in an unprecedented step, the state published not only its own budget, but also that of all the 23 local government councils online on the http://openkaduna.com.ng/
“The local government budgets provide details of the recurrent and capital spending of every single LG in a transparent manner.’’
“ The proposed 2017 LG budgets, currently before the state Assembly, are also already online on the same website, and on http://www.kdsg.gov.ng/. Approved state budgets 2016-2017 can be found on http://openkaduna.com.ng/Budget/approved-budget>.
The governor said as regards Security Votes, the details of spending priorities as contained in the Kaduna Comprehensive Security Architecture (KADCoSA) showed the state was directing security spending on justice, technology, community engagement and support to security agencies.
He said in 2017, N1.5 billion had been budgeted for the procurement & installation of CCTV cameras for monitoring and surveillance towards reducing criminal activities within the metropolis.
The governor said that N193 million was for procurement of geo-position interceptor and location of GSM UMTS system to check the trends and intercept locate kidnappers’ GSM calls.
He said N265 million had been budgeted for the procurement of drones/Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to identify locations of armed bandits in forest reserves across the state and the establishment of a forensic laboratory.
The sum of N2.6 billion had been allocated in 2017 to support the network of federal security agencies in Kaduna with communication, logistics and materials.
He said the 2015 accounts of the Kaduna State Government had been audited, and the audit summary published in major newspapers and on the state website on 21st June 2016.
“The Accountant-General’s report for 2016 has been finalised and its audit is ongoing and will be published as usual and the audited state government accounts could also be found on our website,” he said.
The governor then reiterated his call to the National Assembly leadership to publish the details of the National Assembly budget, and the salaries and allowances of its leadership.
Reacting to El-Rufai’s statement, the House of Representatives said yesterday that it would publish the details of its budget as soon as the 2017 budget was passed into law.
Spokesman of the House, Abdulrazak Namdas (APC, Adamawa) said Speaker Yakubu Dogara had already directed the management of the House to do that.
Source – Daily Trust
