10 November 2009
Alleged financial abuses and failure by the National Assembly (NASS) to account for public funds amounting to N5.7bn during the last legislative session, which ended on June 5, 2007, has not only brought to the fore the calibre of some of the people making laws for Nigerians but has further given credence to the argument that Nigeria is one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
Break down of the amount already being queried by the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, shows that N2.9bn was spent in the Senate and N2.7bn in the House of Representatives during the period under review.
Summary of the infraction contained in an annual report on the accounts of the federation for 2006, indicates that 40 senators were granted N1.6bn advances, 30 Reps and 37 administrative staff of the Assembly took N222.1m cash advances while N104.29m vouchers were hidden from auditors. Also, the National Assembly overdrew overhead cost accounts by N1.1bn, N33.8m accrued as bank charges, while N128m 'goods in store' could not be traced.
President of the Senate then was Mr. Ken Nnamani while Alhaji Bello Masari was Speaker of the House of Representatives and Mr. Nasiru Arab was the NASS Clerk.
In countries where leaders are truly accountable to the people, there is no way such a monumental fraud would have been committed under any administration and its leaders would still be walking the streets as free men.
In Nigeria, however, that is how resources, which ought to be for the good of all, are being frittered away by the few who, incidentally, are supposed to be holding them in trust for the people.
Perhaps, the picture of what to expect from our legislators became clear just at the dawn of the new democratic dispensation in 1999, as one of the earliest shocks received by Nigerians was news of the outrageous N3.5m and N2.5m furniture allowances approved by the National Assembly for each of the Senators and Representatives respectively. And that was 10 years ago!
Among other incidents that have tended to point to the fact that the supposed representatives of the people may after all be only interested in their individual pockets include the revelation by the now late Senator Idris Kuta-led panel in 2000 that former Senate president, now late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo and some others in the upper chamber were involved in the inflation of streetlights project to the tune of N173 million.
Also fresh in our memory is the allegation of misappropriation of public funds in multiple contracts of N628m (US$5 million) for the renovation of the official residence of disgraced former Speaker Patricia Etteh, and the purchase of 12 official cars.
Recent allegation of fraud in the N2.3bn contract awarded by the House to Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN) for the supply of cars for principal officers of the House, whose investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has till today remained inconclusive, is another indication of the bazaar that goes on at the National Assembly, while many Nigerians continue to live in abject poverty.
This systemic looting of public funds in the country obviously cuts across the board. The case of the National Assembly may just have aroused this public interest, because its members are the ones often pontificating about good governance. And the matter is made worst by the fact that the NASS management, which ought to guard against such fraud, equally joined in the bazaar.
This is part of the rot that must be tackled by any government that is serious. But on the contrary, the huge resources expended in servicing the overhead cost of members of the National Assembly does not suggest that the nation is serious at all in the much talked-about quest to conserve resources to tackle budget deficits that confront it every financial year.
Apart from criticisms against what has been viewed as outrageous take-home packages for the country's lawmakers, a situation where members of the National Assembly are empowered to approve allowances for themselves in addition to their regular pay as fixed by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is obviously unhealthy for the nation.
We, therefore, insist that those who took these advances must be made to refund the monies by the new leadership of the National Assembly and any attempt to write them off as toxic loans should be resisted by Nigerians.
Good conscience demands that even those among them that may have left the NASS should come forward to refund the monies they took. Should they fail to do so, we are aware that given their standing in society, tracking them will not be a difficult job to do. They must be found and made to pay what they borrowed.
However, any serious institution, in the first place, would have deducted the said amounts from their terminal benefits.
In all these, we also blame the NASS bureaucracy. To think, for instance, that goods worth millions of Naira could have disappeared from the NASS store is further confirmation of the level of corruption that marks our national life.
While we are not exonerating the current legislative session from such fraudulent activities, considering pockets of scandals that periodically blow open there, we counsel that the leadership must ensure that similar development does not occur both at the NASS and at all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government.
This unfortunate trend, which is not limited to the federal legislature also goes on in states and local governments' legislatures, and has consequently made legislative jobs unduly attractive to moneybags and jobless men and women with get-rich-quick mentality.
And an assembly, made up of corrupt and selfish politicians and otherwise jobless money bags, is not the kind of legislature that Nigerians desire, and every effort must be made to ensure that present and future legislators do not go the way of those who looted the coffers of the immediate past NASS. And, we insist, they must not be allowed to get away with it.
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