A former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby
Ezekwesili, on Monday said Nigeria had spent over N1tn on the
National Assembly members in the last eight years.
Ezekwesili, in a keynote address she
delivered during one-day dialogue session on the ‘Cost of governance in
Nigeria, “ added that banks earned N699bn as interests last year on
loans secured by the government.
“Since 2005, the National Assembly
members alone have been allocated N1tr,’’she said while also lamenting
that “82 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary cost goes for recurrent
expenditure.”
To buttress her claim that much was
being spent servicing those in government, she said that “ a
research conducted in the United Kingdom identified Nigerian legislators
as being the highest paid in the world.”
Although she was applauded by
participants at the session organised in Abuja by the Civil Society
Legislative Advocacy Centre with support from Federal Public
Administration Reform Programme in the UK, she drew flak from the
National Assembly members, who said her claim amounted to blackmail.
But Ezekwesili, who was also a former
minister of Solid Mineral and World Bank Vice-President for Africa
Region, challenged civil society groups to demand a mini-national
dialogue that centres on good governance and the the release of the
Steve Oronsaye report on Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal
Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.
“There should be effective demand by
civil society groups of the report of the Oronsaye report. You should
also demand a mini-national transparent dialogue because it touches on
the heart of good governance”, she stated.
She also pointed out that one of the
greatest mistakes of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration under which
she served twice as a minister was that Nigeria delved into democracy
without necessarily doing away with a military mindset.
“There is a drawback to the military
era. One major mistake of the government under which I served was that
we simply got into democracy and did not spend reasonable time
getting every citizen; every leader and every institution to do away
with militaristic ethos and principles from their minds,” Ezekwesili
added.
According to her, the social dilemma
which the country currently finds itself would be overcome if
stakeholders, especially lawmakers, consider part-time legislation as
a means of bringing down the cost of governance.
She said part-time lawmaking would ensure that the right people got into governance.
“Things will improve through part-time
legislation. It will also reduce the number of people who will go into
the National Assembly. You must have means of livelihood so that you
won’t have to depend on public funds, ”she said.
The former minister argued that
Nigeria’s problem was not the system of governance but more of the
kind of people managing it.
Ezekwesili said while other countries
were moving forward technologically, Nigeria was trapped by oil, a
natural resource which it loses a revenue of about $1.6bn annually.
She said, “When I was in government, I
was totally debating public policies. We must debate public policies
as a nation because if we don’t do so, we will make silly mistakes
because we don’t involve the stakeholders. So policy debates must be
encouraged.
“The culture of personalising policy
dialogues must stop. When you have a problem, you don’t leave the
problem and begin to chase other matters.
“I feel sorry for any person who is
fairly okay in this nation and doesn’t care about the poor because there
will be an implosion. Whatever treatment that is given to the poor and
vulnerable in the society must matter to everybody because except we
have social inclusion in the society, we stand the danger of implosion.
This has happened in other countries which ignored the vulnerable
people.”
In his speech, the Executive Director of CISLAC, Ibrahim Rafsanjani, condemned the cost of governance in Nigeria.
He said, “There is recent media report
of our National Assembly members being the highest paid in the world.
The size of the cabinet at the executive level, including the retinue
of superfluous aides and special assistants, is alarming. The fact
that the 10 planes in the Presidential fleet gulp N9.08bn annually
is something that must be looked into.”
But the Senate, through its Majority
Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba(SAN), described the statement by the former
minister as another blackmail against the National Assembly.
Ndoma-Egba told one of our
correspondents that the National Assembly received far less than what
the other arms of government were allocated in the national budget.
He said, “I don’t know how she arrived
at the figure. But what is allocated to the National Assembly is known
to the public. In the last four years, the National Assembly has been
allocated N150bn, which has been the highest since 1999. It is another
attempt to blackmail the National Assembly.
“They are saying cost of governance is high, what was the overheads when she was minister. Let her say it.
“Pick the budget and look at it without
sentiments and compare the overheads of the Executive with that of the
National Assembly. Nobody is saying anything about that.
“When President Goodluck Jonathan said
there should be a reduction in the cost of governance, the National
Assembly reduced its overheads, none of the other arms of government did
that.
“If we say that cost of governance is
high, we should sit down and look at all the aspects, instead of
castigating the National Assembly.”
The House of Representatives also
dismissed the former minister’s comments as “blackmail, which sole aim
is to seek headlines.”
The House argued that her figure appeared to have been “conjured up for fancy as it simply does not add up.”
The Deputy Chairman, House Committee on
Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Victor Afam-Ogene, who spoke for the
legislators, said that in the last three years, the budget of the
“entire National Assembly, including the bureaucracy and the National
Assembly Commission, had remained at N150bn.”
He added that this meant that prior to 2010, the budget could have been less than N150bn.
“Now, a simple check will tell you that
even at N150bn per year from 1999 till date will not give you anything
near over N8tn. It, therefore, means that her figure is fallacious”,
Afam-Ogene stated.
He expressed surprise that each time
people talked about reducing the cost of governance, they only
complained about the National Assembly and not the Executive arm.
Afam-Ogene asked, “What is the percentage of N150bn in a budget of N4.9trillion (2013 budget)?
“People think that this N150bn is just for salaries and allowances of legislators. This is not correct.
“It is for the entire institution of the
National Assembly, including the capital projects for all the organs
therein. We have always called for cutting cost of governance and the
problem really is with the Executive. That is where the waste we often
complain about is. But, nobody looks that way.
“Today(Monday), some papers reported that ministers were spending N2bn on air tickets alone. That is the waste we talk about.
“People always want to blackmail the National Assembly, the core of democracy, and leave out the real issues.”
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Who approved all these nonsense? Is it not the same highly respected Minister of finance and co? Is she telling us that all these spending did not get to her table before these money where taken away? Na God go save us from all these our hypocritical ministers that want to form as angles of light mean while they are part of the problems
ReplyDeleteMy problems with Ezekwesili is that it appears she often allows her personal sentiments becloud her logic in analyses. This is her field, she should give us all the data on expenses in the Nigerian Government before deducing, but no, she does not want people to know how much she squandered during her tenure, she brought up that of the National Assembly alone and left her audience to conclude that NASS is the cause of high governance. The is skewed analyses. Last week in a similar attitude she went on air to say Femi Fani Kayode should be arrested for speaking. These are the dangerous set of people who misuse powers. She has access to data but she only released that which exposed her opponents' weakness and hid her shortcoming on the same issue she is discussing. Oby must refrain from unbiassed comments if she must be taken seriously in the Nigerian politics. Except if she is naturally lazy or incompetent, which i doubt based on her achievements.
ReplyDeleteI dont think she will say things of this nature without some real data at her fingertips.
DeleteRmb the other time she said something similar, she challenged them to a public debate so she could make more clearer explanations, yet her accusers never accepted that.
She said nothing but d truth, d whole truth indeed. D last writer wrote bcos of wat she said abt FFK which was also d truth.
ReplyDeleteThe last writer must be a stupid and a foolish Igbos citizen for writing that what the stupid woman wrote abt FFK is the truth. All the igbos are senseless people.
ReplyDeleteYou are calling all the Igbos senseless people. You should have not written as an Anonymous so that we know where you come from. I know you must be a Yoruba stock, the most tribalistic in the whole world.
ReplyDeleteThe National Assembly is taking too much of our money. Compare the number of people in the National Assembly and the number of civil servants which are part of the Executives as we know them today. When you compare them you will know that the Executives are not gulping too much as alleged by the NASS.