Through a fresh legislation, the Senate is planning to secure a more permanent source of funding for the controversial constituency projects that have always pitted the National Assembly against the Presidency.
Specifically, the lawmakers have started a move to create a Constituency Development Fund to be domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and financed through deductions from annual national revenues.
Already, a bill for the new legislation, tagged “Constituency Development Fund Bill 2016”, has been introduced to the Upper Chamber through its sponsor and Senate Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume.
If the bill is passed into law, the Federal Government may forfeit 2.5 per cent of its annual budget as well as other monetary accruals to the fund. If this legislation becomes functional by next year, the 2.5 per cent of the N7.3 trillion budget for 2017 which is N182.5 billion will go for constituency projects.
And if this amount is meant only for the 109 members who make up the upper legislative chamber, each senator, without a perking order, will be taking home N1.7 billion for constituency projects. This amount is enough to build and equip a cottage hospital. And it is about 50 per cent of the N4 billion yearly budget of a teaching hospital. If the menace of corruption is ruled out, the bill may promote faster execution of capital projects to which the constituency funds are tied, because lawmakers whose constituencies benefit would directly monitor the projects to ensure that they progress.
But the move by the legislators may cause further rift between them and the executive arm of government which has the constitutional responsibilities of placing projects in budgets and executing them. The role of the National Assembly in this regard is to pass annual budgets.
It was learnt that the leadership of the National Assembly packaged the bill as a better and more acceptable arrangement to replace the earlier legislative plan to force the Federal Government to lose at least 20 per cent of its national budgets to the constituency projects.
Justifying the need to insert the constituency projects in the annual budgets, during a debate on a similar proposed law sponsored by Stella Oduah, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said: “I don’t think there is anything that ensures equity in the country like the constituency projects. Our responsibility is to provide the projects to our constituencies, full stop.”
Barely a week before it received the N7.3 trillion 2017 budget proposal from President Muhammadu Buhari on December 14, 2016, the Senate endorsed for further legislative work, a bill to reserve 20 per cent of annual budgets for National Assembly Constituency Projects.
Sponsored by Odua (PDP, Anambra North), the bill after, passing the second reading, was referred to the Senate committees on appropriation and finance, and is expected to be passed into law early in 2017.
The key provision in the bill which many described as “self-serving and over-ambitious”, is one which states that at least 20 per cent of annual budgets must be dedicated to constituency projects.
The groundswell of opposition to the bill from across the country made some senators to suggest alternative means of sourcing funds for the projects.
It was learnt that the Ndume’s bill which is being processed as the alternative legislation is to be given accelerated treatment upon the resumption of the Senate from its three-week Christmas and New Year holidays.
The Ndume’s bill proposes the establishment of the Constituency Development Fund which shall be national, consisting of not less than 2.5 percent of all the Federal Government’s ordinary budget in every financial year.
The fund to be managed by the Department of Rural Development in the Ministry of Agriculture will also include the revenue ” accruing to or received by the department from any other source; or any money disbursed by the Federal Government to the department for even development and provision of rural infrastructure in the manner provided by this Act.”
According to the bill, “l.5 % and 1 % of the total revenue accruing to the Department under this Act shall be allocated for developmental projects at all federal constituencies and senatorial districts in the federation respectively.”
The bill empowers the department to perform other key functions particularly with regard to the Constituency Development Fund which include ensuring timely and efficient management of the fund; receiving and discussing list of proposed projects from the constituencies; ensuring the execution of approved projects to completion; and ensuring the compilation of proper records, returns and reports for the constituencies.
Other functions which the department is expected to perform are receiving and addressing complaints and disputes or where necessary refer such complaints to the appropriate government body or the National Assembly for investigation and resolution; considering project proposals submitted from various constituencies in accordance with the Act, approve for funding those projects that are consistent with the Act and disburse funds for the execution of the said projects.”
Section six of the bill specifically mandates the president to allocate funds for the (CDF).
The Guardian
Thanks Mazi Nwalutu for pointing those things. Take a look at who sponsored the bill…the same “princess Odua” that purchased 2 bullet-proof BMW vehicles when was the Aviation minister.
Look again, you’d see why death sentence for looters or “economic treason” act can NEVER be introduced or work in Nigeria; the same senators will never pass it.
Cash Ezimako
Until death sentence is passed against corruption in Nigeria the nation will continue to plummet into the quagmire and abyss of corruption. It is obvious now to all that Buhari does not fight corruption but his political opponents since all those who looted the country’s wealth have found escapee route in his party. He is only fighting other thieves who remain in different party platforms using the instruments of the state. If you climb IROKO Igbo people advise you to ensure you come down with firewood because climbing IROKO is not a normal feat. Why will senators be passing bill to receive money that they know they will each dump in their foreign accounts using one devious deal or the other, when an average Nigerian languishes in abject poverty? The law makers must pass a bill that will see any leader in the country in the three tiers of governance and three arms of government (I mean, the federal level, state and local government levels; and the legislative, executive and judiciary) jailed from the day they leave office, if any KOBO is unaccounted for until such money is replaced. When we institute such law the nation will begin to heal and politics will cease to be as bloody as we see it today because such laws will screen off crooks and thieves and ensure only selfless patriots contest and would be elected into office. This is exactly where countries like China and other Asians started.