By Fred Itua, Abuja
For over two decades, financial infractions and malfeasance, especially through budget padding related to non-existent projects, have been perpetrated in the federal legislative arm of government in Nigeria, the National Assembly. These have often been treated with levity by the authorities. There is also not much of an outcry from Nigerians. Owing to this, the country suffers financial losses year in, year out.
There is usually connivance between heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), lawmakers, legislative aides and clerks to the various standing committees of the National Assembly, among others, and pseudo-contractors who insert into annual budgets phantom projects, which get financial allocations. These allocations are claimed and shared by members of the cartel, while the non-existent projects are cleared as executed, with fake documents signed by the relevant officials.
A three-month-long investigative journey by Daily Sun has unearthed a “project heist” through phoney constituency contracts handled by lawmakers, using companies owned by family members and political allies, ceremonial oversight visits and the unending vicious circles.
The National Assembly, like the other two ar
ms of government, plays a pivotal role in the administration of the country. While some critical stakeholders may ascribe more importance to the executive and the judiciary, scholars who understand the importance of parliamentary democracy place the National Assembly as first among equals.
According to the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the functions of lawmakers stand on a tripod: lawmaking, oversight and representation. While Nigerians appear to place more emphasis on representation and lawmaking, oversight has often been neglected. This error has, in the last two decades, left many sad stories.
Section 4 (2) of the Constitution, which clearly defines the role of the National Assembly, says: “The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution.
Again, Section 88 says, “Each House of the National Assembly has
the power to investigate (a) any matter in respect of which it has the power to make laws; and (b) the conduct of any parastatal or official responsible for administering any Act of the National Assembly or in charge of disbursing funds. The section then says that this power to investigate is only exercisable for the purpose of enabling it (i.e. the Senate or the House of Reps) to (a) make laws on any matter within its legislative competence and correct defects in existing laws; and (b) expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws.”
The phrase, ‘budget padding’ gained a notorious prominence during the administration
of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The National Assembly, at the beginning of the Fourth Republic, was serially involved in budget padding, collecting bribes to inflate projects and financial inducement to confirm appointees of the President.
For instance, in 2004, a N55 million scandal broke in the Senate. Some senators had accused Adolphus Wabara, then Senate President, of exceeding his authority by approving the execution of various contracts without the knowledge or approval of appropriate Senate committees.
No sooner did the scandal break, than President Obasanjo made a national broadcast in which he decried the level of corruption in the Senate and the House of Representatives, alleging that the former Senate President and committee chairmen on education in both the Senate and the House took bribe, totalling N55 million, from then minister of education, Professor Fabian Osuji, to inflate the budget of the education ministry for the 2005 fiscal year.
The allegation by Obasanjo led to the resignation of Osuji as minister of education, while Wabara also resigned as Senate President in April 2005, six months after the scandal hit the airwaves.
Incumbent governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, in 2003, as minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, accused some senators of demanding gratification before clearing him. The situation influenced the Senate to set up a committee to look into the bribe allegation. The outcome of the probe, like others after it, is still gathering dust on the shelf of the National Assembly.
Since then, the phrase has found its way into Nigeria’s parliamentary ‘dictionary’. Every year, accusations are made of how lawmakers unlawfully insert personal and fictitious projects into budgets. Despite the glaring proofs, anti-graft agencies seldom arrest or prosecute those involved.
In the 8th National Assembly, Abdulmumin Jibrin, the then chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriation, pointedly accused the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and three other top officers of the House of padding the 2016 budget by over N40 billion. The others were the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yussuff Lasun, the Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, and the Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor.
Jibrin also alleged that several favoured committee chairmen and members had projects inserted into the budget, among other allegations.
Dogara dismissed the claims and insisted that the National Assembly acted within the law. He said the National Assembly only asserted its independence.
“The law is there. Both communications, whatever it is, they are privileged. That is in order to give independence to the legislature. If the legislature is not independent, we can’t do anything. If whatever you say on the floor or before a committee or whatever you communicate is subject of litigation, then all the members will be in court and at the end of the day when debate comes, you cannot even air your views.
“So, the budget, being a law, therefore, means that it is only, I repeat, only the parliament that can make it because it is law and I challenge all of us, members of the civil society to look at the law and tell me where it is written that the President can make the budget,” Dogara had argued.
Despite Dogara’s elaborate explanation, Jibrin refused to stop the whistle-blowing until the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership intervened in the matter and restrained both parties from making further public exposé as it became an embarrassment.
But this was after Jibrin had already taken a step ahead, petitioning the police department and anti-graft agencies to investigate the allegations. The investigations were abandoned halfway.
Again, in 2018, a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, bluntly alleged that the National Assembly committee bosses were notorious for demanding and taking bribes when exercising their oversight functions. He, therefore, warned of the need to act decisively on corruption issues to avoid the danger of turning the little gains made so far in the anti-graft war “into drops in the ocean.”
How budgets are padded by MDAs, lawmakers and National Assembly staff
In the Senate, ditto the House of Representatives, the Appropriation committee is the most coveted. Lawmakers, at the beginning of every legislative circle, lobby the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to appoint them as chairmen, vice-chairmen or members of the Appropriation committee.
The coveted committee has a clerk from the National Assembly bureaucracy as the head of the secretariat. Throughout the process of budget defence and approval, the Appropriation committee chairman works closely with the clerk.
Daily Sun, during a discreet investigation, unearthed how the committee, working closely with budget officers of the various MDAs, tinkers with the annual appropriation.
It was discovered that other standing committees of the National Assembly, which, during the budget defence, defer to the Appropriation committee as the lead panel, submit their reports for vetting. The powerful Appropriation committee chairman, if not satisfied with the explanations offered by his colleagues who head other committees, could unilaterally yank off projects and other illicit insertions.
Daily Sun also uncovered how projects running into billions of naira not tied to any specific locations were inserted into the budgets, with the full knowledge of the executing MDAs. Sometimes, the insertions are made by staff of the various MDAs, who succeed whenever lawmakers are not alert.
The inclusion of these non-existent projects is exclusive of the annual N100 billion earmarked for constituency projects by lawmakers.
“When the budget is passed and funds are released for those fictitious projects illegally inserted into the budget, clerks who are heads of committees at the bureaucratic level take custody of the funds from the MDAs on behalf of lawmakers. The clerk disburses the funds based on instructions from the committee chairman. They can deny, but they know the truth,” a staff in one of the committees who spoke to Daily Sun in confidence revealed.
The staff gave further damning details, thus: “There are instances where billions are budgeted for a research institute that is obscure and has never conducted anything. That’s why you go to some villages and communities and you see road projects executed by agricultural institutes. These lawmakers push these funds into these areas that people don’t look at.
“Research institutes build town halls and classrooms. Ordinarily, they’ve no business with these things, but lawmakers have found a clever way to find their way around the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. For anyone who is in doubt, they can find out independently.
“That’s why you see chairmen of powerful committees get as much as N15 billion annually for fictitious or sub-standard constituency projects. The method I’ve explained above is what they adopt. Lawmakers who aren’t ‘smart’, hardly get up to N200 million to do anything in a whole year.”
Daily Sun gathered that officials of the Ministry of Finance in charge of funds disbursement are often aware of these padding and illegal insertions done by lawmakers. Officials of anti-graft agencies like the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) are also aware of the sharp practices, but are often blackmailed to look the other way.
The Finance Ministry, Daily Sun learnt, sometimes refuses to release funds, which has often led to unspoken face-offs between the minister and leaders of the National Assembly. Usually, whenever the funds are held back by the finance minister, summons and other subtle threats are issued by the various standing committees of the National Assembly. As soon as areas of disagreements are resolved, the noise fizzles out and investigators grow cold feet.
The approved budget for 2020 was originally N10.33 trillion. The figure jumped to N10.81 trillion after the lawmakers injected an extra N480 billion into the spending plan. This represented about 4.8% of the entire budget for the fiscal year.
In the 2021 budget of N13.08 trillion, members of the National Assembly were accused of padding it by about N500 billion. That makes up about 6% of the entire budget, expected to cater for a population of over 200 million. Project duplication worth N100 billion was also smuggled into the N17.12 trillion 2022 budget by some MDAs, according to a report by anti-graft agencies.
Media aide to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Tanko Yinusa Abdullahi, refused to respond to questions posed to him on how his principal, the Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister, Zainab Ahmed, is addressing the concerns raised.
At the time of filing this report, Mr. Abdullahi had not responded to the issues Daily Sun raised.
Spokesman for the Senate, Bashir Ajibola, in a message, while responding to questions posed by Daily Sun on budget padding, simply quipped: “I don’t know about budget padding.” His House of Representatives counterpart, Benjamin Kalu, declined to comment despite taking our correspondent’s call and reading the WhatsApp messages sent to him on the same subject matter.
However, giving insight into it, a former governor from one of the southeastern states said lawmakers have the powers to reallocate projects. He, however, noted that inclusion of fake projects was a crime and members or staff involved should be made to answer questions by the relevant government agencies.
He said: “Budget padding, although I don’t totally agree with that term, is not new. Allegations against members of the National Assembly are becoming a recurring thing. We need to understand that lawmakers have the power of the purse. We are not a rubber stamp parliament that can’t interrogate a budget presented to us.
“So, what people call padding is what we may call reallocation of priorities in the budget. We relate with the people at the grassroots and we understand what they want. And we need to tailor the budget to meet their needs.
“As for the illegal insertions and other fraudulent aspects they’re alleging, the relevant government agencies can investigate and do the needful.”
Questionable constituency projects
Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP), also known as constituency projects, gained prominence during the administration of President Obasanjo. Although there is no constitutional backing, constituency projects are meant to extend the dividends of democratic governance to the various constituencies of federal legislators. This is naturally intended to spur grassroots development.
According to BudgIT Tracka, between 2009 and 2019, over N1 trillion was allocated to constituency projects in Nigeria. It tracked 15,859 constituency projects across 7,589 towns in Nigeria as of 2019. It reported the completion of 7,000 public projects across 26 states, while over 200 projects worth billions of naira were either abandoned or uncompleted.
Lawmakers have always argued that, except for constituency projects, many villages and towns in Nigeria wouldn’t have enjoyed the dividends of democratic governance. Others have also argued to the contrary, calling for its outright cancelation.
Daily Sun, during its investigations, interacted with contractors executing some of these constituency projects, who revealed how lawmakers bypass due process to hijack them.
It was uncovered that over 90 per cent of lawmakers, from the Senate and the House of Representatives, don’t consult their constituents on the nature of projects they want before cases are made.
It was discovered that lawmakers often settle for petty projects but budget humongous amounts for them. They usually settle for classrooms, town halls, health centres (not equipped), rural roads and empowerment programmes. The aforementioned top the list of projects lawmakers usually settle for.
For instance, despite the outcry, about five constituency projects have been linked to Surulere Federal Constituency, in the 2023 budget, namely: the “Construction of Blocks, A, B, C, D, E and F of Femi Gbajabiamila Senior Secondary School, Itire, Lagos, with each “Block” costing N200 million each, while an ICT centre in the school is also proposed to cost N250 million in the budget.
The 2023 budget captures the “provision and installation of all-in-one solar-powered street lights in selected communities across five local government councils of Delta Central Senatorial District with, a contract sum of N200 million for each community.”
Also, there is another provision of N1.5 billion each for the construction of block A and B faculty buildings at the Federal Polytechnic, Orogun, Delta State. There is also another budgetary provision of N1 billion for the construction of Administrative block for the Federal Polytechnic, Orogun.
The 2023 budget also has provision for the “construction of solar-powered borehole for Fulani Settlements in Yobe North Senatorial District at the cost of N150 million, while another N120 million was provided in the budget for the purchase of tricycles for Yobe North Senatorial District. There is yet another N600 million provision for the installation of Solar lights in Yobe North Senatorial District, while N188 million was budgeted for building concrete drainages in Yobe North Senatorial District as well..
Daily Sun investigations revealed that the funds are usually domiciled in key MDAs. One of the leading MDAs that warehouses billions of naira earmarked for constituency projects is Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA), headed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s son-in-law, Junaid Abdullahi.
A visit to the expansive building located in Utako District of Abuja, is an eye-opener. Though it is an interventionist agency established by an act of the Parliament to develop all Border Communities’ amenities through the implementation of planned and sustainable projects, it has since abandoned its mandate to execute constituency projects on behalf of members of the National Assembly.
By design, lawmakers are not allowed to execute their own projects. They’re to recommend, while the various assigned MDAs, execute the projects. However, that arrangement has been defeated.
Daily Sun discovered that lawmakers mount pressure on agencies of government like BCDA, to award the contracts to the companies they recommend. The agencies have since succumbed to the blackmail.
Lawmakers sometimes use special aides or relatives to bid for the contracts and secure them. Thereafter, funds for the projects are funneled to the companies, which in turn, make financial returns to lawmakers. Returns are usually made to some of the lawmakers, depending on the amount involved.
It was further discovered that the supervising agencies of these constituency projects, seldom visit the sites to ascertain the levels of completion before final payments are made for jobs allegedly done. Instead, they rely on pictorial and video evidences from contractors, who sometimes doctor them, to effect payments.
A staff in one of the supervising agencies, who spoke to Daily Sun, blamed it on insecurity reports often presented by the contractors, who then convince them to rely on pictorial and video evidences to effect payments.
Asked if they get gratification by the contractors, the staff who is not authorised to speak on the issue, said they’re usually paid a fee that covers their travel expenses, even when they don’t visit. The staff refused to put a figure to it.
It was however, confirmed that between two to three percent of the contract sum, is usually offered in return for favourable report on project not visited or ascertained.
Another worrisome twist to the constituency projects regime, resulting from Daily Sun investigations, is the sub-standard nature of the facilities provided by lawmakers. A visit to some sites by our correspondents, revealed a disturbing trend.
Many roads constructed by lawmakers, barely survive the realities of the raining seasons. They’re often washed out in less than two years after construction. Drainages are rarely provided, whereas these additions are captured in the budgets for constituency projects.
Constructed classrooms and health centres are not exempted from the sub-standard projects executed by lawmakers. The roofs, walls and ceilings of the buildings, cave in after a few years, thereby placing the burden on constituents to fix the mess they didn’t create.
In Iruekpen community, located in Esan West, Esan Central and Igueben Federal Constituency, a road built under the constituency projects arrangement around the Catholic Church, didn’t survive one season of heavy rains. The road built in 2019, was washed off barely a year after in 2020 when Daily Sun correspondent visited.
Another road project in the same Federal Constituency in Edo, called Emuhi road, was abandoned halfway. The poorly constructed portion, when this correspondent visited, had caved in, forcing many users to ply other routes.
Director of Information, National Assembly, Rawlings Agada, in his reaction, defended lawmakers and clerks, insisting that they are empowered to tinker with the budget. According to him, clerks are heads of Secretariat can therefore not be accused of involvement in any budget padding.
He said: “It is within their constitutional powers, as the legislative arm of government, to scrutinise and appropriate the budget proposals as representative of the people, to ensure equitable allocation of resources, avoid waste, duplications and corruption.
“The staff/clerks of Committee cannot be said to be aiding padding process in the budget as our duties are clearly spelt out as the Secreteriat of taking and keeping records of proceedings in the Chambers and Committees as resolved upon by the members.
“So it will amount to giving a dog a bad name for taking legitimate orders from his boss instead of commendations. Finally, we are equally guided by our service regulations and the law in the discharge of our duties. It is not out of place to allege such occurrences which is not limited to the legislative arm alone.”
Beyond the aforementioned, Daily Sun discovered that many lawmakers involved in the heists, are often in desperate needs of funds to augment what they earn.
It was further discovered that a good percentage of funds realised from the proceeds by lawmakers, are often spent in repaying loans secured to run for elections. Needy constituents sometimes benefit from the ‘spoils of war’, while a substantial part is also funneled into lucrative investments that yield returns.
Ceremonial oversight visits
Oversight visits, is one of the key functions of lawmakers. Beside lawmaking and representation, oversight is considered as one of their cardinal functions.
Until 2015, though considered a smokescreen, oversight was one of the methods adopted by members of the National Assembly, through which fraudulent projects and other financial malfeasance perpetuated by heads of MDAs, were unearthed.
Since the administration of President Buhari in 2015, lawmakers have abandoned serious oversight visits. The situation has been further compounded by the current insecurity in the country. Beside Lagos, Abuja and Rivers State, lawmakers seldom visit project sites or embark on oversight visits to other states.
Nevertheless, Daily Sun investigations have revealed that standing committees in the National Assembly are not financially empowered to carry out serious oversight visits, unless their expenses are bankrolled by MDAs they should ordinarily supervise.
Part of the investigations revealed that in the Senate for instance, only about six standing committees are funded by the leadership of the upper legislative chamber, whereas, an annual budget of about N11 billion, is usually earmarked for standing committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives to carry out oversights and other engagements
The six standing committees whose activities are directly funded, according to the outcome of Daily Sun investigations, include Services, Anti-corruption, Rules and Business, Public Accounts, Public Petitions, and Media.
The other standing committees rely on the benevolence of heads of MDAs to fund their oversight visits. In other instances, governors of the states where the oversights are conducted, foot the bills or support them financially. These include air transportation, hotel, feeding, logistics and financial gifts.
To cover up their lack of thorough investigation during the visits, journalists, which ordinarily should be included, have been shut out by Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila-led National Assembly since 2019, when they assumed office.
Anti-graft agencies, stakeholders speak on way forward
Daily Sun engaged some anti-graft agencies and members of the civil society community on how to address the issues and concerns raised.
Spokesman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, in a chat with Daily Sun, said the anti-graft agency has been involved in the fight against budget padding, fraud in constituency projects, among others.
Citing two cases it is currently prosecuting in court, he said: “We’ve been working. Former chairman of House of Representatives NDDC committee is facing trial in court. In the past, we took Hembe, another member of the House of Representatives to court.”
ICPC chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye’s statement made available to Daily Sun, explained the anti-graft agency’s launch of System Study and Review of MDAs. He said the move has assisted in the discovery of scams by the MDAs.
“The System Study and Review aims at studying the management structures, internal controls, operational procedures, culture and stakeholder perceptions of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government for corruption risk with the ultimate aim of drawing up guide for correction of identified loopholes to guard against corruption and corrupt practices,” he noted.
Addressing the issues raised in the investigations conducted by Daily Sun, the ICPC boss said they discovered project duplication and budget padding for the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years during scrutiny of projects approved for the various MDAs.
He noted: “From our own end at the ICPC, detection of such projects is done by verifying their locations and names, upon which we tell the appropriate authorities not to release wrongly budgeted monies.
“When such duplicated projects and budget padding are uncovered, we write to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to inform of such discovery and request that funds should not be released to the duplicated projects.
“ICPC’s interception ensured that monies for the fraudulent acts are prevented from being released to the affected MDAs. It is gratifying that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation have cooperated with us.”
Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional lawyer, in an interview with Daily Sun on the two key issues- budget padding and constituency projects, tackled the National Assembly for delving into areas that are exclusively for the other arms of government.
He said: “Budget padding Is evil and it is from the pit of lucifer’s hell. It is act that is not only unpatriotic. It is inimical to the health and growth of the Nigerian economy. That’s why Nigeria spends 85% of its budget on recurrent expenditure.
“Budget padding as far as I am concerned by this lazy and indolent 9th National Assembly is an inglorious act of infamy which must be condemned by every Nigerian.
“Constituency projects shouldn’t be part of legislators’ work. The government has three arms. The job of the Legislature is to make laws under section four of the constitution.
“The job of the Executive is to carry out or implement laws made by the Legislature under Section 5 of the Constitution. The work of the Judiciary is to settle disputes between persons and governments that will arise after making laws.
“The separation of powers was put in place for a healthy system. It is therefore very curious for the Legislature whose job to focus on making laws for the good of Nigeria, will begin to scramble for constituency projects.
“They’re digging boreholes and building other things for the people. But the bulk of the money is actually pocketed. If you’re digging borehole for the people, what is the job of local governments or state governments? It means the Executive should begin to make laws for us. The Judiciary should be given contracts too to share bags of rice. This is unconstitutional.”
On his part, Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), called on Nigerians to speak up, while urging the Executive to address the concerns raised in the investigations conducted by Daily Sun.
“Nigerians must speak against this gross abuse of powers. The Executive should take action,” Musa said.
Giving an elaborate explanation, he noted: “You would recall that during the 2020 budget signing of the 2020 Appropriation bill into law in December 2109 by the President, the new aggregate was about ₦10.6 trillion — a difference of about ₦264 billion from the ₦10.3 trillion he proposed in October of the same year.
“In the 2021 budget cycle, the Nigerian President reluctantly appended his signature over concerns that the 469 lawmakers that make up Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives inserted over 6,576 ‘new projects’ into the budget he submitted in October when he presented the 2021 Appropriation Bill before a joint session of the upper and lower Houses of the National Assembly. So, the country’s apex legislature has so far inserted an additional N913.15 billion and N910.37 billion for capital projects in the 2021 and 2022 budgets, respectively. This has been a recurring theme in our budget cycles.
“This pattern of arbitrariness in exercise of legislated powers assumed after being “democratically” elected by the Nigerian electorate has to stop or be stopped. These insertions seem to lack any sincerity of purpose- they constitute about 22% of the 2022 budget and should largely seat within the purview of sub-national governments. There are frivolous provisions for constituency-like projects that should be the responsibility of local governments.
“According to the latest phase three report of a onstituency project tracking exercise by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) which covered projects in 17 states, many constituency projects are still shrouded in corrupt and shady dealings. Millions of children are going to be deprived by the education materials and learning facilities which will or have been forgone by this “PATTERN”.
“This has implications for lives who may be deprived of access to proper healthcare. There are potentially grave consequences to food security, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, housing and every other capital infrastructure that has to be sacrificed at the expense of the already 130 million impoverished Nigerians for the satisfaction of a few.
“To receive funding, capital projects are obligated to prove how the investment provides an improvement (additional capacity), new useful feature, or benefit (reduced costs). The Nigerian legislature like all its other counterparts has an important role to play in shaping the annual budget and in providing budgetary oversight. When fiscal policies and medium-term budgetary objectives are debated in legislature and annual budget laws are adopted by the legislature, budget strategies and policies are “owned” by the elected representatives.
“This “PATTERN” poses a huge threat to our democracy, if the elected few who take legislative liberties in appropriating budgetary allocations to themselves are to take ownership of our budget strategies and policies.”
Dr Enemhinye Socrates Ehigiator, law lecturer and a projector, in his intervention, expressed dismay. He said it was criminal for lawmakers to illegally insert projects into the budget. He also rejected the yearly allocation of billions to fund constituency projects of lawmakers.
Ehigiator said: “Ordinarily, the National Assembly should act as a check to curb the excesses of the Executive Arm of Government and when a budget is brought before the National Assembly, it ought to be for a thorough scrutiny, especially to eliminate wastefuness and not for them to craftily increase the proposed expenditure for the fiscal year, through the backdoor and unlawfully, which is called budget padding.
“It is my suggestion that there should be a specialised Law, to criminalise budget padding, for the act is tantamount to a Criminal Cetrayal of Trust and offenders should be punished accordingly.
“On the issue of National Assembly members, engaging in Constituency Projects, I seriously frown at it, for it goes beyond the prescribed oversight functions, prescribed by the Constitution.
“National Assembly Members or Committees (Standing and Adhoc) may embark on inspection of projects as part of their oversight functions, but engaging in the execution of projects under the guise of Constituency Projects, should not be encouraged, it grossly offends the Principle of Separation of Powers.”
Sunny Anderson Osiebe, Executive Director HallowMace Foundation, while preferring solutions, called on the Federal Government to come up with clear laws that will punish people involved in budget padding.
Osiebe also called for the use of modern technology in tracking the budget from the point of submission until execution, to prevent people from inserting fictitious projects.
“In the last few years, the word ‘padding’ has gradually crept into Nigeria’s budgeting system and in less than five years or thereabout, it has now completely assumed a life of its own,” he said.
Adding, he noted: “Despite the public outcry that greeted the padding of both 2021 and 2022 budgets, on November 5, 2022, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rashid, told the joint Senate and House Committee on Tertiary Education and TETfund during budget defence, that N12 billion was inserted by the Ministry of Finance into the Commission’s 2023 budget .
“In the same vein, on November 17, 2022, the Federal Ministry of Defence also revealed to the Senate Committee on Defence that the Federal Ministry of Finance inserted N10.8bn into their budget.
“The most mind boggling, however, is that of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, which equally accused the Federal Ministry of Finance of surreptitiously inserting a whopping N206.1 billion into its 2023 budget.
“Earlier, on November 1, the Senate Committee on Power also announced that it had discovered N195bn inserted and earmarked as counterpart funding for bilateral and multilateral projects in the ministry of power’s 2023 budget proposal, this also was done without the knowledge of the ministry!
“More worrisome is that items in the budget are directly linked to the presiding (leaders) officers of the National Assembly.
“It looks so slim that budget padding will go away soon in spite of the outcry, frustration and disenchantment of the public towards the attitude of the handlers of Nigeria’s budgeting system.
“But, if the government can summon the courage to adopt more transparent budgeting system, all hopes may not be lost.
“For Nigeria to achieve a more transparent budgeting system that can mitigate the evils of budget padding, I believe that there must be clear law that will govern the budgeting process with transparency and accountability at its core.
“Also, the application of technology, I believe that the current opaque budgeting system which obviously encourages corruption can be tackled. With technology, the process from conception to application can be laid bare and open even for the participation of the citizenry.”
Nduese Essien was the committee chairman on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes in the House of Representatives between 1999-2007. He later served as minister of Housing during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Essien, in an interview with Daily Sun on two key issues- budget padding and constituency projects, called for a review of the system. While opposing a complete scrap of the regime, he called for the accommodation of projects of lawmakers in the main budget at the preparatory stage, instead of providing a separate budget for them.
“The intention when constituency project was proposed was that lawmakers will nominate projects, while MDAs will execute them. It wasn’t intended that money will be given to lawmakers. But the impression out there is that, lawmakers collect these funds.
“I don’t think that’s entirely true. During our time, we nominated projects and MDAs executed them. There wouldn’t have been any need if MDAs had accommodated lawmakers at the point of preparation of budgets.
“They know the people better. Heads of MDAs ought to consult lawmakers before budgets are brought to the National Assembly. That’s why lawmakers always insist that they give them the allowance to have their projects. I don’t want it to be scrapped.
“I want it to be properly handled. I want lawmakers to make inputs at the ministerial level and not to have a separate budget for that,” he explained
Speaking on budget padding, he said MDAs sometimes connive with lawmakers in padding the budget in order to secure their approval during considerations.
He noted: “As for budget padding, I doj6 even know what that means. Well, maybe staff and heads of MDAs do that in connivance with lawmakers to allow them give approval. They need to do that to allow them approve the projects.”
Another former member of the House of Representatives from Ebonyi State between 2011-2015, Peter Edeh, told our correspondent that padding is a word introduced by people who want to give members of the National Assembly a bad name. He said such word is unnecessary, since lawmakers are empowered by law to tinker with annual budgets during considerations.
He also called for a closer supervision of constituency projects and blamed the Ministry of Special Duties for failing to monitor the execution of the interventions. He said lawmakers who represent their people, must protect their interests.
Edeh said: “I don’t understand what they mean by padding. Are they saying that lawmakers have no right to tinker with the budget submitted? Even in the United States of America, where we borrowed our democracy from, lawmakers are consulted during budget considerations.
“As for constituency projects, you can’t blame lawmakers. We recommend and the Executive implements. It should be better supervised going forward. That’s what we should do.”