Nigerian federal lawmakers, in
connivance with executing agencies, have perfected fraudulent means of
pocketing billions of naira under the guise of constituency projects, a report
by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC) has said.
One of the means used in the
fraudulent scheme is the duplication of contracts using the same description,
same narrative, same amount, same location and awarded by the same agency.
This, the ICPC said, is done by
lawmakers to bring the amounts allocated to them within certain approval
threshold of executing agencies so as to avoid ministerial tenders, the report
found.
Another method used in stealing
public funds is the insertion into budgets of a series of fluidy species of
constituency projects termed “capacity building and empowerment projects,”
which entails training and distribution of items and even cash to constituents.
“These Capacity Building and
Empowerment projects have become a convenient conduit for embezzling public
funds by the sponsoring legislators and the executing agency as they are
difficult to track and verify due to their “soft” nature,” the report, which
was signed by Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman, ICPC, read.
The report, Constituency Projects
Tracking Group (CPTG), which is in its first phase, tracked 424 projects from
2015–2018 zonal intervention projects (also called constituency projects)
between June and August, 2019, across 12 states and the Federal Capital
Territory.
The states include Adamawa, Akwa
Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Kano, Kogi, Lagos, Osun and Sokoto.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in
November said there has been very little benefits to the grassroots from the ₦1
trillion that had been earmarked for constituency projects in the last 10
years.
This is so in spite of the wide
disproportionality between appropriations for constituency projects and
statutory projects of some implementing agencies, especially those of Small and
Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) and Border Community Development
Agency (BCDA).
“For instance, in 2015, while the
total mandate allocation for SMEDAN was N1,592,323,599, constituency projects
allocation was N5,814,369,579,” the report said. “95 per cent of these
constituency projects allocations were for empowerment and capacity building
projects. This appropriation jumped up in 2016 to N11,120,099,958; 741 per cent
of mandate budget with empowerment and capacity building projects taking 99% of
the amount.”
“The size, number and types of
Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) domiciled in SMEDAN and BCDA, for instance,
have turned them into conduits for, and means of abuse of constituency projects
and therefore vulnerable to corruption.”
The ICPC report said there is
need to review the statutory mandate of SMEDAN and BCDA against the types of
Zonal Intervention Projects being embedded in them.
It also called for the temporary
suspension of empowerment and capacity building constituency projects since
they are “just free money without accountability, aside from being difficult to
track. If however they must go on, the implementation process and mechanism
must be completely overhauled to put it strictly under absolute control of the
executing agency.”
The spokesperson for the Senate,
Godiya Akwashiki and his colleague at the House of Representatives, Benjamin
Kalu, did not answer or return calls seeking their comments for this story.
They also did not reply text messages sent to them.
Recommendation
The ICPC report called for a
robust sensitization of the local communities on the concept, funding and
implementation of Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP). This it said would enable
citizens to track projects and follow the money thereby reducing incidences of
corruption in the implementation processes.
Also, the ICPC urged the federal
government to oversee the mopping up of unutilised Zonal Intervention Projects
releases into the national treasury account at the end of the financial year,
like it is for regular national budget releases.
“In order to reduce the influence
of the sponsoring legislators on the emergence of a preferred bidder and
strengthen the bidding process, project sites must be determined and given by
legislators before advertisement for, and award of contract so that award
letters will be specific and particular about projects locations,” another
recommendation read.
In order to stall slow paced
projects implementation and the tendency of appropriating for the same project
every year under the guise of “ongoing project”, the government was advised not
to accept new projects in a particular constituency if there are existing
uncompleted or underfunded projects in that constituency.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com