SATURDAY POLSCOPE
By Eddy Odivwri
eddy.odivwri@thisdaylive.com 08053069356
I have followed with keen interest the running spat between Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara. Like El-Rufai, I have always wondered why the budget, salaries, allowances and emoluments of members of the National Assembly are often shrouded in secrecy, despite the transparency mantra which every reasonable politician mouths during campaigns.
I must however add that this secrecy is not an exclusive vice of the members of the National Assembly. It runs through the entire government system including the executive governors, local government chairmen and their officials, even judicial officers etc. We, the members of the masses do not know what they earn officially. Not even the provision of the Freedom of Information Act has been able to break the code of what our lawmakers take home as their pay.
Expectedly, this knowledge gap fuels rumours and sometimes exaggerations on what the actual figures are. As the younger generation will say, Gov El-Rufai was thus on point when he challenged the National Assembly leaders, represented by Dogara to unveil the secrecy surrounding their budget and salaries.
As a counterpoise, Dogara had challenged El-Rufai to publish both his salary and the security vote and what they (governors) do with Local Government funds.
It is noteworthy that the National Assembly leaders are often edgy and uneasy and sometimes unduly angry, whenever they are challenged to make known their pay packet. I don’t understand why it annoys them, even as they claim they derive their powers from the mandate we gave them.
Anything that seeks to expose the figures to public scrutiny is frowned upon seriously. That was why the House of Reps promptly suspended, for one year, Mr Jubrin Abdulmumuni who tried to blow the whistle on budget padding. The poor lad is still serving his suspension. If there is nothing to hide among the lawmakers, why do they get fussy any time the issue of their take home package comes up?
The Kaduna governor had in response, published, last Monday, not only his state budget, but also his monthly salary as approved by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC).
Boxed in, Dogara was thus forced to follow suit by publishing, last Wednesday, the details of his six-month pay slip.
Although only the naïve will believe that the published figures are all there are to their salaries and benefits, it, at least, offers a silhouette of what officially these leaders are entitled to.
Is it also not remarkable that of the published six-month pay slip of Dogara, the net figures changed four times? Certainly, there is more to the benefits of these lawmakers than has been made public.
Rightly, El-Rufai in his memo, had noted that, “The call to #OpenNASS is not a personal one. It is one which the leadership of the National Assembly owes to all Nigerians. It is therefore disingenuous for the Speaker to use State Government budgets as the excuse for the opacity of the NASS budget.” He alleged further that “in 2016, the NASS budget for its 469 members was larger than the capital budget of Kaduna State, with close to 10 million inhabitants. It is also larger than the entire budget of several Nigerian states. Indeed, over the past ten years from 2008, the NASS as an institution has cost the country over a trillion naira without any detail on how this amount was allocated and spent”. Can Dogara fault this?
I listened to the feeble and uneasy defence of the Chairman of the House of Reps committee on media and public affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, who pointed out that what El-Rufai published was the security budget of his state and not the governor’s security vote as demanded by Dogara.
He further added that the National Assembly budget covers the salaries and allowances of all the 469 lawmakers, the salaries and allowances of the about 3000 legislative aides, and the salaries and allowances of about 5000 staff in the National Assembly Bureaucracy. He claimed that the National Assembly budget is just about two per cent of the total National budget, wondering why the attention is focused on just the two percent without minding what happens to the other 98 per cent. He claimed further that the challenge from El-Rufai amounts to undermining of the Buhari administration and a distraction of the National Assembly. Really? If it is not abuse or misuse of words, I do not see how the call for transparency in an institution’s budget amounts to distraction and undermining of an administration.
Mr Namdas, two per cent of a nation’s budget is not a joke. Do the members of the National Assembly make up to two per cent of the nation’s population, as to appropriate about N115 billion?
Why did Namdas not talk about the many contracts the lawmakers run after, sometimes at the expense of their duties?
Or why did he not talk about how they blackmail ministers, to corner juicy projects in the budget before passing the budgets? Why did Dogara not talk about the N15 million each of them receives as running cost of their offices every month? Nobody talks about illegal oversight kickbacks they get from contractors. Nobody reckons with the many under-the-table deals that go on within the National Assembly. To advertise a stripped pay slip in pretentious pursuit of transparency is thus specious and misleading.
Were it not so, how can a mere salary of N346,577.87, (for the Speaker) for instance, sustain the nearly wild and epicurean life style of many of the lawmakers, as we see them?
Are we not aware that many of the so-called constituency projects of the lawmakers merely end up in their pockets, without anything being done for the poor, and sometimes ignorant constituents?
Are we not aware that some crooked lawmakers even adopt/appropriate state government projects as their own constituency projects, during those jamboree inspections called oversight functions?
If the lawmakers are diligent in checking and monitoring the budget implementation, Nigeria would probably record about 50 to 60 per cent budget implementation and the country would be a million times better for it. But they compromise, run a chop-and-chop budget, look the other way even when they know the wrong things have been done, believing that next year, those same projects will feature again in the budget. And the beat goes on.
In all, I think the El-Rufai challenge is apt and a call to a new orientation among public servants. It is the failure to run transparent system that feeds the greed and corruption among many public servants. And that, in a way, explains why they have wealth they hide and cannot declare, because they know they did not acquire such wealth legitimately. Let the El Rufai fire catch on, even among those in the executive arm of government.
PIX: Dogara.jpg
FGPL: PenCom’s Regulatory Strides and Odivwri’s Misadventure
Aliyu Dankade
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o discerning members of the public, the Saturday, April 1, 2017 column by Eddy Odivwri entitled “FGPL: Has PenCom not Worsened the Woes of Pensioners”, is not surprising, given the sustained campaign of misinformation and calumny against the National Pension Commission, PenCom, since its regulatory intervention in First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL), a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), to save the company from predatory tendencies of some indicted Board Members.
In his earlier piece in the 11th February, 2017 edition of THISDAY titled “PENCOM: What is Going on with Chidi Duru”, Odivwri claimed that FGPL “was doing well” before PenCom forcefully took over its management and refused to obey purported court orders and the purported directive of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to dissolve PenCom’s Interim Management Committee (IMC) overseeing the FGPL and reinstate Duru and his cohorts.
Sack of FGPL Board and setting up of an IMC
Contrary to Odivwri’s claim that “the Anohu-Amazu-led PenCom did not follow due process, but “rather peremptorily ordered the Board members to resign”, PenCom’s regulatory intervention in FGPL took place in 2011 during M.K Ahmad’s tenure as the Commission’s Director-General and followed due process. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, (then the Legal Adviser to PenCom) was appointed Acting DG in 2012, and DG in 2014, only inherited the matter.
PenCom undertook various routine and special examinations on the FGPL from 2007 to 2011, in line with its regulatory mandate under the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004 (in force then). They all revealed persistent infractions and unsound corporate governance practices by the former Vice Chairman, Nze Chidi Duru; Chairman of FGPL Chief Orlando Ojo, and Mr. Derrick Roper, an erstwhile director of the PFA representing the interest of Novare Holdings (Pty) Ltd of South Africa. They violated the Code of Ethics and Business Practices, the Code of Corporate Governance for Licensed Operators issued by PenCom as well as the provisions of the said PRA 2004 and other Nigerian laws.
There were alleged gross breaches of procurement laws, with Chidi Duru awarding contracts to companies he had direct interests in.
Deluge of Litigations, and Stalemate
Duru actually opened the floodgate of pending litigations before several Courts when he sued the Commission seeking to stop the implementation of the reports indicting him. He also sponsored cases, through Chief Ojo, at the Federal High Court (FHC) challenging their removal. Both suits, FHC/L/CS/1035/2011 in their personal names, and FHC/L/CS/1036/2011 in the name of FGPL were struck out by both the FHC and the Court of Appeal. Their appeal to the Supreme Court is pending, yet Duru will not let the court decide.
In another suit (FHC/ABJ/CS/784/2011) six Shareholders led by Alhaji Kashim Imam, sued PenCom, FGPL, Nze Chidi Duru, and nine others seeking to declare the Examination Report on FGPL valid and to enforce its implementation. It is currently before the Court of Appeal in CA/A/31/2012.
Duru, and his companies (BP Outsourcing Limited and Grand Towers Plc), and Arthur Ogbulefu (representing Genou Concept) also sued FGPL and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) seeking to challenge the implementation of the Commission’s share verification and audit review, which clearly showed how he allegedly cornered shares of the company.
AGM, Audited Account, and Continued Presence of the IMC
In suit FHC/L/CS/145/2012, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim-Iman vs. FGPL, Kashim Imam applied and obtained an order from the FHC Lagos (Per. Justice Okechukwu Okeke) for FGPL to hold an EGM to appoint new directors and Management team, and request a handover of the PFA from PenCom. However, the order for the EGM was set aside upon the application of Chief Ojo and Nze Duru.
Apparently, FGPL shareholders’ war, numerous litigations and restraining orders have made it impossible for the shareholders to hold an AGM/EGM, hence the continued stay of the IMC, initially intended by PenCom as an interim measure. Therefore, it is wrong to attribute non-holding of AGM/EGM or continued presence of the IMC to PenCom’s ulterior motives. The absence of an Audited Report for the PFA is therefore simply due to a lack of a proper Board of Directors for FGPL that would consider and approve same in line with CAMA law.
Alleged Disregard for Court Order and AGF
The implementation of the FGPL Target Examination report was put on hold because the order to Stay Execution by Hon. Justice G.O Kolawole, following PENCOM’s application, had specifically directed parties in the suit FHC/ABJ/CS/709/2011 to maintain the status quo prevalent in the morning before the judgment was delivered in the suit. So, it is a misrepresentation of facts to insinuate that the Commission substituted the directors of FGPL in defiance of court orders, whereas the actions were earlier concluded.
Performance of FGPL under the IMC
While Duru and cohorts left the PFA’s account in red to the tune of N422, 958, 000 in August 2011 when the IMC took over, FGPL recorded a profit of N1, 922,390,000 as at April 2016 and will show greater performance when another report is out this April. Again, the value of the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) under FGPL’s management has skyrocketed from N32.7 Billion to N93.9 Billion. The book balance of the pension fund, which was N42.1 Billion, has shot up to N115.2 Billion. It has also attracted significant legacy funds, such as those of Dangote Cement, Emenite, and Jigawa State Staff Pension Fund, etc.
Pix: Chinelo Anohu.jpg
Omoru Presents Whose Meal Ticket?
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radually and steadily, Mrs Kehinde Omoru, journalist and educator, under the auspices of Roxanne Care Options Project, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), is carving a niche in movie production. But hers is not the run-of-the-mill Nollywood movies. They are health-focused. While her first movie, Deeply Cut created huge awareness impact on the contact and treatment of Hepatitis B, the latest movie, Whose Meal Ticket?, is aimed at creating all the awareness and consciousness in Diabetes, Skin Integrity and Conception. It seeks to provide education on how to do what when one contacts the sicknesses.
The movie which will be released today at The Genesis Deluxe Cinemas, Palms Mall, Lekki, Lagos promises to offer a working manual on tackling the health challenges of the mentioned ailments using thespian performance.
