Since the past two years, budget preparation, submission and approval have been trailed by one controversy or the other. If the budget was not late or delayed, what we hear is that it was missing. At times, one wonders whether the budget is prepared by aliens, using extra-terrestrial tools. One would think that the document was never typed nor prepared from a PC from where additional copies could be made.
More recently is the spat on the 2017 budget between the powerful, Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola who had accused the lawmakers of inserting extraneous items while reducing money that had been allocated to certain projects. Specifically, the minister accused the lawmakers of reducing the allocations to projects like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway from N31bn to N10bn. If one wants to infer from the minister’s statement, N15bn is to pay the outstanding of the contractors who had already written that they would shut down work on the project if they were not paid. The same is applicable to the second Niger bridge which was reduced from N15bn to N10bn, while about N3bn was also removed from the Okene-Lokoja-Abuja road budget. In areas of power, the minister further accused the lawmakers of slashing the budget in the power sector, “Everybody is complaining about power supply but they also cut the budget for Mambila power project and the Bodo Bridge that connects the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Station”.
Most alarming is the revelation that the National Assembly’s budget was increased to N125bn from N115bn. The minister said those items that he never knew about were inserted in the budget such as boreholes, Primary health centers and about 100 state roads which should only be the responsibility of the state.
If the lawmakers actually did what the minister had accused them of doing, then they stand condemned. The budget had been defended, and no eyebrow was raised by the lawmakers during the budget’s defence. They also did not state they were going to add new projects to the ones already listed in the budget. Even if they felt the need to add certain projects, should they not have lobbied or even consulted the ministry? I have no illusion that these projects inserted by the lawmakers are means of passing some of these projects off as constituency projects. The minister is courageous by revealing what has happened. What about the other ministries? Are the ministers in charge keeping quiet and crying in silence, knowing fully well that what the lawmakers did has always been part of the game, with every one taking his or her cut from budgetary allocations.
One tends to think that the lawmakers are asserting their independence in a negative and condemnable manner. Because they hold the power of approval, they now do what would benefit them rather than the masses by increasing their own budget, haba!
Are they aware of the economic importance of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway? The effect of the delay of the second Niger bridge which previous administrations had only paid lip service to or the death trap that the the Okene-Abuja road had become? Do they know the numbers of vehicles that ply these roads, daily. Have they considered the toll of the carnage that occurs on the roads due to its terrible state, on the nation? If they had, they would have considered the roads as priorities instead of focusing on state roads which should be the responsibility of states.
The House of Representatives has summoned the minister to the chambers to explain what led him to reveal such a closely held secret to members of the public. They should not get away with that, they should not get away with the way they carry on as if they were in a constant state of battle with the executives. The expectations of Nigerians is for the lawmakers to look out for them, for their welfare to be a priority. That does not seem to be the case. The National Assembly carry on as if they are in battle with the executives, with tantrums thrown into the equation. They are always at logger heads with members of the executives, browbeating and intimidating some, forgetting they are expected to work together to make the country a better place for all.
The lawmakers should realize that they are the representatives of the people, who should understand where the shoe is pinching the masses and be willing to offer balms to soothe the pains. But they seem to have forgotten that and this probably informed their anti-people action on the budget.
Nigerians should equally be alive to the power they wield. They should know they have the power of recall over members of the legislative arm of government. They could occupy the National Assembly, they could take over the constituency offices of the legislators and insist that they do the right thing. Indeed, one tends to ask why there had not been such mass actions against these lawmakers, to take them on, on why they felt they had to cut down on projects that would benefit the greater number of people. The day we start to do this, would be the day the lawmakers would be alive to the fact that they are representatives of the people and the people’s will is supreme.
