THE National Assembly’s failure to approve the N135.6 billion virement, which the Executive submitted to the lawmakers on July 20, to improve funding for critical national infrastructure, is baffling. Lawmakers from the two legislative chambers revealed recently that the request had become “irrelevant.” The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, read the virement letter in the plenary on November 6 – more than three months after its receipt. It was not, therefore, surprising that Mao Ohuabuwa, a senator, declared that it had been “overtaken by events.”
Virement is the parliamentary nod to the Executive to move already budgeted funds from one sub-head to another, as exigencies dictate. As the Acting President, the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, forwarded the demand shortly after he had assented to the N7.4 trillion budget with misgivings, to address its apparent distortions by the lawmakers. This was mutually agreed to.
Specifically, Osinbajo questioned the slashing of funds provided for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge, which the legislators used to increase their own budget and more funds for their favoured projects. For instance, the N31 billion earmarked for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway reconstruction was reduced to just N10 billion; while the National Assembly budget went up from N115 billion to N125 billion. It is unimaginable that a budget meant to steer the country out of recession was encumbered with 100 new roads determined by the lawmakers; and against the background of over 200 uncompleted ones inherited from the last administration.
The senator’s position is out of sync with national priorities and the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun’s assertion that about 60 per cent of capital budget spending would be carried over to 2018. The 2016 capital outlay experienced the same spillover. “There was no stoppage in terms of capital spent as projects simply continued,” the minister told the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and Appropriation in October.
Details of the virement show the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing is to benefit by N46 billion; Ministry of Transportation, N66 billion; Ministry of Interior, N7.6 billion; Ministry of Defence, N3.1 billion; and Ministry of Water Resources, N2.8 billion. If the adjustments were made, Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company would have continued work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, just as the Lagos-Ibadan railway project would have begun. In June, Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, complained that despite the bitter public complaints about abysmal power supply, the money for Mambila power project was also reduced; the same for the Bodo Bridge that links the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Station.
The economic importance of these projects should not be ignored. As the busiest highway in the country, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway bears the burden of import and export transportation exertions from the Apapa ports in Lagos – Nigeria’s economic capital – and the evacuation of finished goods from Ikeja and Agbara industrial areas to other parts of the country. Periodically, traffic gridlock occurs for 24 hours on the road; and its toll on the economy is incalculable. About 25,000 vehicles ply the road every hour, says the Federal Road Safety Corps.
Thousands of fuel trucks and other trailers that ply the road expose other road users to the worst nightmare on any Nigerian road. In other developed economies, major haulage activities are undertaken by rail transport. It is a lacuna the Lagos-Ibadan rail project is designed to fill. The Ikeja industrial complex accounted for 55 per cent of goods manufactured in the country in 2016, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.
But clearly, at play is crude politicking with the so-called lawmakers’ constituency projects as the weapon. As of October, only N450 billion had been released for capital projects. Some lawmakers see these projects from parochial or regional prisms. This is sad; and those involved are vile and insensitive; and unworthy of their seats. These are projects that could trigger rapid economic recovery and promote job creation for the youth. The All Progressives Congress, whose leadership has no firm grip on its members that dominate the parliament, shares in this blame; so does the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency for its weakness. Ultimately, the country suffers it; therefore, Nigerians should rise to stop the use of constituency projects as a weapon in the lawmakers’ proxy war with the Executive.
Ironically, when the lawmakers excoriate the Executive over poor capital budget implementation, they fail to recognise the delay in passing the budget with their needless recesses, going to court in solidarity with their leader facing corruption trial; and distortions they bring to bear on the budget. These make implementation difficult.
BudgetIT, a civil society organisation committed to value for money in the use of public funds, has exposed the constituency project phenomenon as a big fraud. For instance, a total of 343 of such projects in the 2016 budget were not executed and the locations of 4.8 per cent of the 852 projects it tracked were not specified in the budget. It said, “These projects were signed off and contractors got paid most of the fees…” The pilot survey covered 20 states.
Every President since 1999 has rejected this obvious abuse of legislative power. Going by the constitution, drilling boreholes and building town halls are not the functions of the central government. Therefore, the ongoing effort to legalise constituency projects funding with a bill under consideration, is tantamount to standing constitutional breach and standing logic on its head. This self-serving drama by the Saraki-led Senate and the House of Representatives under Yakubu Dogara’s leadership should stop forthwith. The selfish interest of 469 lawmakers should not overshadow that of a country of an estimated 180 million people.
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