There are strong indications that the controversial constituency projects will no longer be accommodated in national annual budgets, at least in the 2017 appropriation bill being put together by the executive.
Presidency sources tell BusinessDay that President Muhammadu Buhari is strongly opposed to including the projects in the budget on the grounds that the realities of government’s thinning resources can no longer accommodate such ‘frivolous’ projects and also that they have barley made an impact over years.
BusinessDay exclusively gathered that the president is insisting this time, that projects will be done collectively through communities and zones and not handed out as constituency projects.This has been a point of division between the executive and the legislature, especially in the 2016 appropriation.
“The President is insisting that there will be no constituency projects in the 2017 budget,” a senior Presidency official who preferred to speak off the record, told our correspondent.
This comes as observers, particularly civil society organisations, have kicked against a bill presently at the Senate titled, “the Constituency Projects (Budgetary Provision) Bill, which seeks to now earmark as much 20percent of the annual national budget for the implementation constituency projects.
According to the official, the President’s view is that projects can cut across different communities and can be called constituency projects. They need not be tagged or tied to a particular legislator or zone, he said.
“That is actually the major problem. From his own point of view, if a rail line passes through your constituency, that can be recorded as a constituency project” the official said.
The Senate had initially thrown out the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF\FSP) for 2017- 2019, sent by President Buhari, describing it as empty. Our source said they had requested for more details which had been sent to them but added that there was an undertone to the whole charade of throwing out the document in the first place. According to him, constituency projects were not constitutional and there was nothing to fight over.
They however resumed proceedings on the MTEF after some releases were reportedly made for the 2016 constituency projects.
Besides the MTEF, the President’s request for the $30 billion external borrowing plan before the senate has also suffered a major set back.
Constituency projects in Nigeria are usually marked for execution by federal lawmakers every budget year, as a way of allowing them give back to their constituencies. But there are concerns that most of these projects are left uncompleted in different constituencies, while others never see the light of day.
Many lawmakers sometimes use them as a campaign chip to bargain for a next term, while others pocket the sums without executing the said projects.
Recall the budget padding controversy that rocked the 2016 appropriation and a resolve by the President to end the alleged corruption in the budgetary processes. The budget padding controvery had also led to the late passage of the 2016 budget in May, after it was submitted in December last year by the President.
The 2016 budget brought to the fore the mismanagement of the projects, with the whistle blowing by the suspended chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin.
Jibrin who also planted projects in the budget, raised an alarm that projects worth billions of naira were fraudulently inserted into the 2016 budget and accused the Speaker of the house, Yakubu Dogara of culpability.
As of 2014, a total sum of N900billion had been appropriated for constituency projects since 2004.
Out of the over N6trillion 2016 budget, N100billion was devoted to constituency projects to be executed by the lawmakers.
Based on the basis of poor performance, civil society organisations have kicked against the Constituency Projects (Budgetary Provision) Bill, which stipulates that 20percent of the annual national budget be devoted to constituency projects.
The bill which is currently before the Senate, seeks to ensure that specific portion of the annual federal budget is “devoted to the constituencies for the purposes of infrastructural development, wealth creation and the fight against poverty at the constituency level”.
If the proposal becomes law, it implies that constituency projects would take a minimum of N1.2trillion from the annual national budget.
“If the proposal is approved, lawmakers will focus on constituency projects rather than on their primary responsibility. It will legitimise the corruption surrounding the constituency project and a diversion of legislative work,” Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), told BusinessDay in an exclusive interview.
The bill titled: “An Act to Provide for Constituency Project in the Annual Budget of the Federation; and for Other Matters Connected Therewith” is sponsored by Stella Oduah.
Constituency projects were introduced by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 to foster cordial relationship between the Executive and Legislature.
They are pet projects chosen by federal legislators but executed by Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
However, the Obasanjo administration and succeeding ones, have neglected the projects, rather skewing implementation towards projects conceived by the administration.
In the current administration, both the Executive and the Legislature have been on a collision course on the matter. Recall that in July this year, the Senate invited Babachir David Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation over comments that the 2016 approved constituency projects in this year’s budget would not be implemented due to lack of funds.
There are even rising concerns that this is one of the issues currently causing the delay by the Senate in the approval of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework which would eventually slow the passage of the 2017 budget.
Reports also suggest that some of the reason the Senate rejected President Buhari’s $29.9billion external loan was the absence of implementation of constituency projects.
There are 469 constituencies in the National Assembly, consisting of 109 senatorial districts and 360 federal constituencies.
According to Section 3 of the proposed legislation: “The list of proposed constituency projects to be covered by this Act shall be submitted by the member of the National Assembly representing that Constituency”.
The bill, seen by BusinessDay, which has passed First Reading in the Senate, stipulates that members shall submit the project proposal to the Appropriation Committee for input into the budget.
It also states that the list of projects shall be filled in the Standard Constituency Projects Submission Form.
The bill also lists the number of projects to be included in the constituency projects’ forms from five to 20 in each financial year.
If the bill becomes law, constituency projects would increase from N100billion in the 2016 budget to a minimum of N1.2trillion from the annual national budget of over N6trillion.
But some analysts are peeved that many of the projects dubbed as constituency projects are essentially “jobs for the boys”; meant to compensate loyal party members.
However, proponents of the project have argued that they are the only way through which Nigerian lawmakers can attract federal presence to their constituencies.
Executive Director, Friends in the Gap Advocacy Initiative, George Oji, kicked against the bill, saying the 20 percent proposal would further entrench corruption in the system.
He called on lawmakers to focus on their job of lawmaking, through painstaking oversight and holding the Executive to account.
“I have issues with the 20 percent involved. It’s too high and we have issues with the constituency projects because of the failure of those projects. So, why are we investing more resources in it?
“The constituency projects have been criticised because of the corruption component to it. The contracts are not determined by the people but by lawmakers who influence those who will do the contracts, follow it up and at the end of the day, they are the ones that are executing it indirectly”, he told BusinessDay.
There are claims that although constituency projects are advertised as required by law, lawmakers have devised dubious ways of ensuring that only companies fronting for them or those belonging to their cronies are pre-qualified.
According to the CISLAC Executive Director, “This proposal clearly shows the failure in the whole budgetary process in Nigeria and the governance process at all levels. If we are going to go by this proposal it shows clearly there is a failure in governance architecture in Nigeria, whereby programmes and projects are now going to be personalised in the name of individuals that are representatives of the people.
“This means there is a complete failure at the local government level, state and federal level. And it also means that this whole issue of constituency project is going to be the pre-occupation of the legislators, rather than focusing on the legislative work, which is representation, lawmaking, oversight and constituency accountability”.
Elizabeth Archibong & OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
