Budget Padding: You Know My Take-Home Pay But I Don’t Know Yours – Ningi Tackles Akpabio

Posted by Thandiubani on Tue 12th Mar, 2024 - tori.ng

Ningi spoke on Tuesday while defending his budget padding allegation on the floor of the Senate.

Senator Abdul Ningi on Tuesday tackled Senate President Godswill Akpabio over his take-home pay, saying it’s not known.

Ningi represents Bauchi Central on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Ningi spoke on Tuesday while defending his budget padding allegation on the floor of the Senate.

The senator had earlier alleged that the 2024 budget was padded to the tune of N3.7 trillion.

Ningi is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Population. He is also the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum.

Although he was to make a presentation on the budget padding allegation, Ningi veered off, telling the Senate President he doesn’t know how much he (Akpabio ) and other principal officers earn in a month.

He said: “We discovered, some senatorial districts in this documents have up to N120 billion and my senatorial district has just N1.2 billion.

“Mr President in this budget presented to you, I have facts, constituency by constituency. Some N120 billion, some N50 billion; some N30 billion. Some have less than N1 billion.

“Mr President as I speak to you, I don’t know your take-home pay, you know my own. I don’t know the take-home pay of any of the other principal officers.

“My President, I know within budgetary provisions, you made available funds for purchase of cars. Mr President, I don’t know how much you made for your cars and principals officers. I know how much was made for individual senator’s cars.

“As I speak to you, people are calling me names, I didn’t receive a single car.

“All within the budget provisions, Mr President, I have as a matter of fact, five aides just like other senators but I don’t know how many aides you have or the how many the Deputy Senate President has.”