A
former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, on Monday said Nigeria
had spent over N1tn on the National Assembly members in
the last eight years.
Ezekwesili,
in a keynote address she delivered during one-day dialogue session on the ‘Cost
of governance in Nigeria, “ added that banks earned N699bn as interests
last year on loans secured by the government.
“Since
2005, the National Assembly members alone have been allocated N1tr,’’she said
while also lamenting that “82 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary cost goes for
recurrent expenditure.”
To
buttress her claim that much was being spent servicing those
in government, she said that “ a research conducted in the United
Kingdom identified Nigerian legislators as being the highest paid in the
world.”
Although
she was applauded by participants at the session organized in Abuja by the
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre with support from Federal Public
Administration Reform Programme in the UK, she drew flak from the
National Assembly members, who said her claim amounted to blackmail.
But
Ezekwesili, who was also a former minister of Solid Mineral and World Bank
Vice-President for Africa Region, challenged civil society groups to demand
a mini-national dialogue that centers on good governance and the release of the Steve Oronsaye report on Rationalization
and Restructuring of Federal Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.
“There
should be effective demand by civil society groups of the report of
the Oronsaye report. You should also demand a mini-national
transparent dialogue because it touches on the heart of good governance”,
she stated.
She
also pointed out that one of the greatest mistakes of the Olusegun
Obasanjo administration under which she served twice as a minister was that
Nigeria delved into democracy without necessarily doing away with a
military mindset.
“There
is a drawback to the military era. One major mistake of the government
under which I served was that we simply got into democracy and did not spend
reasonable time getting every citizen; every leader and
every institution to do away with militaristic ethos and
principles from their minds,” Ezekwesili added.
According
to her, the social dilemma which the country currently finds itself would
be overcome if stakeholders, especially lawmakers, consider
part-time legislation as a means of bringing down the cost of
governance.
She
said part-time lawmaking would ensure that the right people
got into governance.
“Things
will improve through part-time legislation. It will also reduce the
number of people who will go into the National Assembly. You must have means of
livelihood so that you won’t have to depend on public funds, ”she said.
The
former minister argued that Nigeria’s problem was not the system of
governance but more of the kind of people managing it.
Ezekwesili
said while other countries were moving forward technologically, Nigeria
was trapped by oil, a natural resource which it loses a revenue of about
$1.6bn annually.
She
said, “When I was in government, I was totally debating
public policies. We must debate public policies as a nation because if we
don’t do so, we will make silly mistakes because we don’t involve the stakeholders.
So policy debates must be encouraged.
“The
culture of personalizing policy dialogues must stop. When you have a problem,
you don’t leave the problem and begin to chase other matters.
“I
feel sorry for any person who is fairly okay in this nation and doesn’t care
about the poor because there will be an implosion. Whatever treatment that is
given to the poor and vulnerable in the society must matter to everybody
because except we have social inclusion in the society, we stand the danger of
implosion. This has happened in other countries which ignored the
vulnerable people.”
In
his speech, the Executive Director of CISLAC, Ibrahim Rafsanjani,
condemned the cost of governance in Nigeria.
He
said, “There is recent media report of our National Assembly members
being the highest paid in the world. The size of the cabinet at the
executive level, including the retinue of superfluous aides and special
assistants, is alarming. The fact that the 10 planes in
the Presidential fleet gulp N9.08bn annually is something that must
be looked into.”
But
the Senate, through its Majority Leader, Victor
Ndoma-Egba(SAN), described the statement by the former minister as
another blackmail against the National Assembly.
Ndoma-Egba
told one of our correspondents that the National Assembly received far
less than what the other arms of government were allocated in the national
budget.
He
said, “I don’t know how she arrived at the figure. But what is allocated to the
National Assembly is known to the public. In the last four years, the
National Assembly has been allocated N150bn, which has been the highest since
1999. It is another attempt to blackmail the National Assembly.
“They
are saying cost of governance is high, what was the overheads when she
was minister. Let her say it.
“Pick
the budget and look at it without sentiments and compare the overheads of the
Executive with that of the National Assembly. Nobody is saying anything about
that.
“When
President Goodluck Jonathan said there should be a reduction in the cost of
governance, the National Assembly reduced its overheads, none of the other arms
of government did that.
“If
we say that cost of governance is high, we should sit down and look at all the
aspects, instead of castigating the National Assembly.”
The
House of Representatives also dismissed the former minister’s comments as
“blackmail, which sole aim is to seek headlines.”
The
House argued that her figure appeared to have been “conjured up for fancy as it
simply does not add up.”
The
Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Victor
Afam-Ogene, who spoke for the legislators, said that in the last three years,
the budget of the “entire National Assembly, including the bureaucracy and the
National Assembly Commission, had remained at N150bn.”
He
added that this meant that prior to 2010, the budget could have been less than
N150bn.
“Now,
a simple check will tell you that even at N150bn per year from 1999 till date
will not give you anything near over N8tn. It, therefore, means that her figure
is fallacious”, Afam-Ogene stated.
He
expressed surprise that each time people talked about reducing the cost of
governance, they only complained about the National Assembly and not the
Executive arm.
Afam-Ogene
asked, “What is the percentage of N150bn in a budget of N4.9trillion
(2013 budget)?
“People
think that this N150bn is just for salaries and allowances of legislators.
This is not correct.
“It
is for the entire institution of the National Assembly, including the capital
projects for all the organs therein. We have always called for cutting cost of
governance and the problem really is with the Executive. That is where the
waste we often complain about is. But, nobody looks that way.
“Today(Monday),
some papers reported that ministers were spending N2bn on air tickets alone.
That is the waste we talk about.
“People
always want to blackmail the National Assembly, the core of democracy, and
leave out the real issues.”
No comments:
Post a Comment