Budget: Reps to launch ‘NASS Eyes’ for effective oversight on MDAs -Kalu

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has said the National Assembly will launch an application known as ‘NASS Eyes’ to monitor budget implementation by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Kalu, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Levinus Nwabughiogu, on Sunday, stated this during a courtesy call on him by the management team of AFRILABS, a high-tech company, at the weekend.

Deputy speaker, who explained that the
mechanism is driven by a conscious effort by the parliament to effectively check the performance of budgetary allocations to the agencies, said monitoring will also include adherence to the principle of federal character by the affected MDAs.

According to him, “so, while you think about the economic and entrepreneurial space, also think about innovations in leadership, through technology. How do we employ that in our oversight functions, so that we can be in our offices, heading our committees and also monitoring what is happening in various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government; so that our oversight functions will not only be based on the bundles of papers submitted to us on the day we visit these MDAs, but a continuous analysis of what they are doing, day in, day out.

“A dashboard that is in the Parliament to see what is being captured in the MDAs will inform members of the Parliament better, so by the time they visit it, they would have gotten sufficient information that would help them oversight tax payers money more efficiently. It is something we must think about.

“We are thinking in that direction and we are about launching what we call the ‘NASS EYES’, the eyes that will be beaming the MDAs while they are working. They will be expected to upload some of the key performance indicators that we will give to them.

“From there, we will analyse and have a better understanding of their budget performance, even before budget presentations, because, some of them come for budget performance presentation and it is rushed, within few hours it is done. That is not well detailed!”