The National Assembly has been in the eye of the storm in recent time over Zonal Intervention Projects popularly known as constituency projects and members’ failure to establish constituency offices where their constituents can relate with them, LEKE BAIYEWU writes
Nigerians have in recent time been asking critical questions about the National Assembly and the role of its members. Members of the parliament are said to have three critical roles, namely representation, law-making and oversight. In recent times, Nigerians have been criticising the lawmakers based on their performance in these areas.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on November 19, 2019, said there was little to show for the over N1tn budgeted for constituency projects, initiated by members of the National Assembly in the last 10 years.
The President said this at the National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in Public Sector organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, where Chairman of the commission, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, presented a report on the first phase of a constituency projects tracking initiative.
Conversely, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had separately debunked the claim, stating that the amount released for execution of the projects was far lower than the amount appropriated for them.
Constituency projects have been one major source of criticisms against the National Assembly. It has been traced to 2001 under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, when the leadership of the legislature, based on an unending demand for dividends of democracy by constituents, sought the approval of the executive for the identification and execution of social projects in their communities.
Proponents of ZIPs had argued that the projects would allow even infrastructural development across the country. They had also argued that the lawmakers, who have direct link with constituents at the grass roots, have a better understanding of the needs of the people.
Following the approval by the executive, projects recommended by lawmakers within their constituencies are funded and implemented by the executive. Initially, members of the Senate got N5m while their House counterparts got N3m annually.
Members of the National Assembly are, however, still struggling to convince Nigerians that they merely identify projects meant to be sited in their constituencies and get them budgeted for within a specified ceiling.
The issue of constituency projects, however, started to become controversial sometime in 2009 when the Senate had an executive (closed-door) meeting which led to a major conflict among them over the sharing formula.
To worsen the matter, lawmakers have often, almost on annual basis, accused of padding the national budget, in the process of inserting constituency projects in the appropriation bill.
The crisis over such insertions had torn the House of Representatives apart in 2016, with the then Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin, opening the can of worms, a development that led to his removal as chairman and subsequent suspension from the chamber.
President Buhari had while signing the 2018 budget complained about similar insertions, alleging that funds voted for some critical projects were reduced and reallocated to constituency projects by lawmakers.
Currently, the National Assembly gets a lump sum of N100bn ZIPs in the annual budget. The Senate, with 109 members, gets 40 per cent or N40bn, while the House, with 360 members, gets 60 per cent or N60bn.
Meanwhile, NASS leaders – made up of the two presiding officers and eight principal officers in each of the chambers – often take a larger percentage of the budgetary allocation.
Each time corruption-related issues are raised about the projects, the lawmakers are always quick to argue that it is the responsibility of the executive, which controls the ministries, departments and agencies, to account for the funding and execution of the projects.
The lawmakers always claim that the projects are domiciled with the MDAs and should be held responsible for the issues that arise from their execution.
The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Benjamin Kalu, while making reference to Buhari’s comment, said those who should be held accountable on constituency projects are “contractors, complicit public servants and project sponsors.”
Kalu said, “The President was not biased in the statement on his fight against corruption. He did not exonerate anyone, namely private sector, public sector and sponsors of these projects. It means that the public servants are the ones who approve the contractors. The public servants are the ones who supervise the works by the contractors. The public servants are the ones who also approve the capital for payment; which means that they have a big role to play. So, 90 per cent goes to the contractors and the public servants, before you talk about sponsors of the projects. Nothing can be done by the sponsor without the approval of the public servant and the contractor.
“I thank Mr President for, once again, highlighting that there is corruption everywhere and none should be left out in the fight to clean up Nigeria. The private sector, which is the contractors who does these jobs, need to be screened to know whether they have received money and refused to execute the job. Also, those in public service who have approved these contractors and supervised them, and approved their payment, should also be screened. Less should be done to sponsors of the projects. Sponsors of the projects only identified the needs of the various constituencies and only presented it for approval by the government. So, less is on them (lawmakers) and much is on the public servants and the contractors.”
But another issue for which the National Assembly has been criticised recently is that six months after their inauguration, many of its members have yet to establish constituency offices.
A lot of them have been accused of visiting their constituencies only during festivals and major political events. Outside this, the lawmakers are accused of staying in their heavily guarded mansions, preventing their constituents from gaining access to them.
The few ones who have established constituency offices told The PUNCH in an exclusive report on Monday about how their constituents made various demands, including assistance for payment of hospital bills, school fees and social functions.
For instance, Senator Adelere Oriolowo (Osun-West) said apart from several CVs his constituents submitted daily at his senatorial office in Kajola, Iwo, several other requests for job placements were emailed to him.
Oriolowo had said, “Most of the needs border on money. Requests for money for social functions, job placement, money to pay hospital bills and so on. It will be difficult to do any tangible project, unless we take extreme caution with all these requests. People seeking jobs are already aware of the demands of the employers, yet many unqualified people will still come forward to seek assistance for jobs they are not qualified to apply for in the first instance.”
Observers of the crowds that besiege the National Assembly everyday have expressed mixed feelings about the level of interaction between representatives and their constituents.
While some believe that the constituents’ expectations are high due to their perception that lawmakers earn high remuneration, others argue that the lawmakers are now bearing the brunt of the inefficiency of the government, especially the executive arm, in providing basic amenities and social security for the masses.
Speaking on the issues, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Mr Auwal Musa, blamed the mistrust between representatives and those they represent on lack of education.
Musa said, “We have always advised the National Assembly to develop political education for their constituents and this is about letting them know and understand their roles and responsibilities as lawmakers. If they are made to understand the limits and the roles of the legislators, some of these unnecessary requests would have been avoided. But in a situation whereby the National Assembly members are not helping the matter by avoiding, completely, their constituents, without interacting and discussing with them to be able to understand their issues and concerns, they are compounding the problem.
“Also, the National Assembly members are deliberately absent from interacting with their constituents. Constituency accountability is about giving feedbacks to constituents on the kind of legislative work you are doing on behalf of the constituents. You are supposed to be giving them updates on what is going on. You are not representing yourself; you are actually representing your constituents. Therefore, you must at all times be able to interact with your constituents, give them feedbacks and pick their opinions on some of the national issues being discussed in the National Assembly.”
The CISLAC boss challenged the parliamentarians to be more transparent and open to those they represent.
He said constituency office was meant to be a meeting point between the lawmaker and the constituents. He urged legislators to engage competent staff who can manage the constituents at their constituency offices even when the lawmakers cannot always be physically present.
Musa, who is the chairman of Amnesty International (Nigeria) and Director of Transparency International (Nigeria), further said, “It is this whole concept of ‘chop-I-chop’ that makes the constituents to also feel that since members are in the National Assembly are enjoying themselves, when they come (to the constituency) they should also give them (constituents) their own share.
“Members also should stop taking responsibilities that are not within the constitutional responsibility of a lawmaker during electoral campaigns. Some of the members made promises like building hospitals, schools, roads and others. The constituents now have so much over expectation and exaggeration of what a lawmaker can do. So, right from the campaign time, the problem starts.”
Musa advised lawmakers to meet their constituents in groups, especially associations, unions and community leaders.
He stated that, “The inability of the members to do anything with anybody is what is creating these problems, and many Nigerians believe that National Assembly members are collecting huge amounts of money and they need to come to their constituencies to share the money. So, this idea of sharing is where the problem is.”
The CISLAC boss also criticised constituents for lacking the knowledge of the workings of the National Assembly and the duties of those who represent them.
He said, “Political education will be able to take away all the burdens. People are asking those questions because they don’t know that the legislature does not have the powers under the law to do what the executive is supposed to be doing, especially what the local or state government is supposed to do. So, the inaccessibility of the public officials by the people is what is also creating these wild demands and expectations.
“If both the legislature and executive are doing what they are supposed to do; if they are not looting or misappropriating, or carrying money to show the poor people, then there won’t be problem. Just because you have been elected into public office, you change houses; you were known to have a house but within one year, you are having three to four houses and five to seven cars; then the people will be agitated. People will feel that this man is from us and he didn’t have XYZ but within one year, he has all these but he doesn’t want to do anything with us. So, once they see you, they will want to collect their own share. It is this display of wealth as a result of ‘over allowances and salaries and other benefits’ that public office holders are having in Nigeria under this democracy, that makes many Nigerians feel that they also have to collect their own share.”