There can hardly be any reasonable assertion that some serious fight against corruption is taking place in the country without evidence of the searchlight beaming on the activities of the National Assembly members. This belief is central to the resolve of the anti-graft agencies to subject to further scrutiny the various sums of money appropriated for the funding of their so-called constituency projects.
It has been confirmed that the National Assembly members, while passing the budget, appropriated about N900 billion between 2004 and 2014, at the rate of N100 billion a year, purportedly for the funding of constituency projects in their localities. Projects such as village primary school renovation, siting of health centres and digging of boreholes that should ordinarily fall within the purview of local or state governments are pushed into the national budget.
The manner in which some of these projects are smuggled in during the process of budget passage often leaves much to be desired. Projects are sometimes listed without any feasibility studies, nor is consideration given to the availability of funds for their execution. Quite often, this has been the source of conflict between the Executive arm of government and the legislators. While the former would complain that the padded budgets were not implementable, the latter would insist on full implementation, wielding, menacingly, the weapon of impeachment.
It is, therefore, heartening that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Nigeria Police have seen the need to investigate how money, totalling about N200 billion, voted for lawmakers’ constituency projects between 2014 and 2015 was spent. Quoting the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, a report said there were allegations that the money did not serve the purpose for which it was appropriated. “If money is approved in the budget, paid and the projects the funds were meant for were not executed, it is only natural to take steps to find out what happened,” Malami was quoted as saying recently.
This is actually the right step to take for an administration that professes to be fighting corruption. Over the years, the conduct of lawmakers at the federal level has often called their integrity into question. Regardless of political party affiliation, they have always comported themselves in a manner that compels their being placed under watch, despite their claim to being the watchdogs. At any time, when they are not exchanging blows and breaking maces, they are bickering over their so-called welfare. Welfare! That is an issue over which opinions at the assembly are never divided along party lines. In the past, there were allegations that they demanded bribes to either confirm ministerial lists or pass the budgets of the various ministries, departments and agencies.
Is it not amazing that, to date, nobody appears to know the exact amount that each lawmaker goes home with every month? While the ECONOMIST of London has boldly asserted that they are the second highest paid legislators in the world – a disproportionate burden for an economy that is nowhere near the largest – they have continued to make their remunerations a subject of top confidentiality. Even when the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, a civil society group, went to court and obtained a judgement, asking them to disclose their allowances and other emoluments, they opted for an appeal.
It is indeed baffling how the lawmakers have been able to get away with the most heinous financial improprieties, sometimes bordering on recklessness, that take place regularly at the Senate and House of Representatives, some of which have hobbled the passage and implementation of the budget. The one that has really stuck like glue, refusing to be shaken off, has been the issue of budget padding. This year’s budget did not receive President Muhammadu Buhari’s assent until May, partly because the lawmakers smuggled items into it that were not originally there.
Very few appreciated the enormity of the padding until the former Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, went public, calling for the resignation of the principal officers of the House for their alleged role in inserting estimates for personal projects into the budget. His allegation that N40 billion was inserted by the House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and four other officers has since been denied, but it is weighty enough to warrant investigation by appropriate agencies. He has also gone further to allege that another N280 billion was fraudulently injected into the budget by the lawmakers, forcing Buhari to withhold his assent.
While the case, which also includes so many other allegations, is before the EFCC following Jibrin’s petition, what has come to light concerning the abuse of funds in the parliament, provides compelling grounds for a thorough investigation, even beyond the so-called constituency projects. It is bad enough that the lawmakers who are supposed to scrutinise the budget as prepared by the Executive arm of government have hijacked that responsibility, it will be immoral to allow them to get away with financial impropriety.
In mature democracies, the practice is for lawmakers to lobby the executive to bring projects to their areas. They draw the attention of the executive arm to whatever is lacking in their constituencies and convince it to include such in the budget planning, based on available resources. It is wrong for the lawmakers to go about inserting projects in the budget and applying arm-twisting tactics to ensure their implementation.
Even though the parliamentarians have argued that federal agencies are responsible for the implementation of the constituency projects, it should not in any way deter the investigation. Efforts should be made to ensure that projects for which money was voted and released were executed; if not, all those involved should not only be made to refund the money, they should be prosecuted. This is an investigation that should end for good the ugly spectre of constituency projects in the National Assembly.
