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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Former chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, has accused the National Assembly of being responsible for the failure of the Nigerian economy.
He made the allegation at the public presentation of ‘The Oversight Magazine’ published by former member of the House of Representatives, Aniekan Umana, yesterday in Abuja.
He lamented that the National Assembly has failed to effectively discharge the constitutional duty of over-sighting the executive arm of the government. He noted that the parliament was also responsible for the government’s huge foreign debt.
According to him, this is because the National Assembly does not ask the necessary questions about how the loan obtained by the government is applied.
He said: “When the legislature goes on oversight, they will not be able to publish the report of the oversight. And when you ask of the report, when I list report for consideration as chairman of Rules and Business, the chairman of the Committee will not come.
“The failure of the Nigerian economy, the collapse of the Naira against the Dollar, the unaccountable debt Nigeria is said to owe are all the result of the National Assembly’s failure to do its oversight function effectively.”
Enang explained that ordinarily, when a budget is passed, the National Assembly is supposed to oversight the releases and project implementation, ascertain the level of compliance with the Appropriation Act, before the President is allowed to present a fresh budget.
“When you pass budget, you go on oversight to see how much of that budget has been released; the extent to which the budget has been executed, and then, you bring a report to the floor to show how much has been released; and to what extent the project has been executed.
“You will then know how much is needed for that project in the next year’s budget. And you then know what to project in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework for the next two, three years to exit that project. So, the failure of the Nigerian economy, the collapse of the Naira and the unimaginable debt are the failure of the National Assembly.
“Again, the National Assembly never asked about the account of the last budget before going to receive the next budget. Under the law, you are expected to receive that and see the level of compliance before you agree for the President to come and present the next budget.
“The debt that we are said to owe is the failure of the National Assembly, because the National Assembly has never, even in my time, when you say no don’t do this, they will say you are blowing grammar. They will say those in favour say “aye,” and before you raise your hand, gavel is gone.
“Now, has the National Assembly ever asked, the loan we said we took, is it the application of that loan that has generated the money we will use in repaying the loan? It does not, so, we use oil money to repay loan which we took. And most of the loans never even arrived Nigeria. Most of the loans never arrived Nigeria. Some are kept somewhere, and gavel goes,” he stated.
