Simon Kolawole is one of Nigeria’s finest senior journalists, his mastery of the Queen’s English, rich and well detailed article which blends the past with the present, and his years of experience in journalism, among others are enough to attract anyone to his weekly piece. I admire him a lot that I hardly miss reading his Sunday article – “Simon Kolawole Live and the four other things”.
I however differ with him on some issues raised in his latest article “Budget as a Tool of Underdevelopment” published in Thisday Newspaper on Sunday 24th June, 2018, an analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s protest that the 2018 budget was severely distorted by the lawmakers with the reduction in allocations to priority projects and addition of over 6,000 new projects.
Without being unfair to him, in some parts of the article SK didn’t shy away from the fact that what the NASS has done with the budget is out of place nor unconstitutional, he posited thus “It is therefore logical and legal for the lawmakers to make inputs into the budget in the national interest.”
But he had an axe to grind with the NASS, which he is at liberty to do. He however took it off the couch by painting a scenario that may coerce his readers into assuming that the National Assembly has been the pest hindering the nation’s development, as if the executive has ever demonstrated any political will towards such assumed development.
According to him, “the representation function of the parliament comes into bold relief in the budgeting process. While the president is representing the whole country, legislators represent individual constituencies, and they have a responsibility to factor in the interests of their constituents —and in a way balance the national and the local. Four, the constitution empowers the national assembly to make laws for “peace, order and good government of the federationâ€. Appropriation offers a powerful opportunity for them to do this.” But SK questioned if the NASS has ever done anything in the national interest. How wrong can he be?
I was forced to ask, when a lawmaker implements a constituency project or facilitates a project to his constituency, in whose interest would such project be? Apparently he and his immediate family might not be direct beneficiaries. As its the case of other members, since becoming a member of the Senate and as a Senate President, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, for instance, has facilitated construction and reconstruction of abandoned federal roads in his Senatorial district than the federal government itself had thought of implementing. We may need to mention this two recent federal roads – Afon/Aboto/Oyo state boundary road and Michael Imodu/Afon Junction in Ilorin.
Already captured in the 2018 budget, as facilitated by the Senate President, is N250 million for the rehabilitation of township roads in Omu-Aran, Kwara state, in whose interest would such project be when implemented? This is one of the insertions the President was talking about, but he and his handlers would want the world to believe the funds for the projects were inserted to be channeled into pockets of lawmakers. SK got it wrong there.
Also under the 2016 and 2017 budgets of the constituency project of the National Assembly, Saraki alone facilitated the construction of about 100 classrooms in Kwara state, through the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), other lawmakers are not left out when it comes to facilitating projects to their constituencies. Yet SK wants us to believe such projects are not in national interest?
In response to SK’s question, on “why despite all the budget defence by the MDAs, the budget still comes out heavily distorted?” It has to be so because ordinarily such projects inserted into the budget by the lawmakers never get the attention of the Federal Government if lawmakers who are closer to the people don’t make case for them and include them in the budget.
Year in, year out we hear lawmakers who are closer to the people at the grassroots than the FG, lament over the failure of the budget to capture sensitive infrastructure in their various constituencies. Of what benefit is a lawmaker to his people, if he cannot offer responsible representation by advocating and attracting developmental projects to his constituency? These budgets are compiled and presented by the executive, this is where we may want to ask, who conducted the NEEDs assessment in the various constituencies and largely neglected them in infrastructural projects?
In the face of flagrant display of lackadaisical attitude towards implementation on 2017 budget, who among the lawmakers needs a prophet to tell him that the incompetency of the executive would rub off on their set out goals for their constituencies?
In his last paragraph “if half of the budget for education or healthcare or roads actually goes into what it is theoretically meant for, we would have overcome most of our daunting challenges by now,” one would have expected the writer to call out the FG for its colossal failure in this regard, but like he has made it clear in the opening paragraphs, his article was about the NASS and he decided to take it to Golgotha.
We were in this country when the Federal Ministry of Finance, announced just few days to the end of 2017, that only 21 percent of the capital component of the 2017 Budget was achieved, the lowest in five years.
Uptill the end of the year 2017, while lawmakers were making visible progress with their facilitated and constituency projects, same could not be said about the executive, there was no specific infrastructural projects from the Capital expenditure, such as roads, hospitals, schools among others which have either been completed or taken far beyond their former states, despite being the only component of the budget the masses benefit from, yet budgetary allocations to State House enjoy easy implementation and unhindered release of funds while the people languish in untold hardship of bad roads, unequipped hospitals incapacitated by workers strike, underfunded schools, but the lawmakers have always come to the rescue with palliative measures. Yet SK wants us to believe the lawmaker do nothing in national interest. Sad postulation.
Allegations of bribery by MDAs to lawmakers to pass budgets, in this era where the fight against corruption has become a slogan, couldn’t have been swept under the carpet if such truly exists in this present dispensation.
If truly Budget is a tool of underdevelopment then the executive has more questions to answer, we may also need to ask if MDAs are unquestionable that Heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) fail to step forward to defend their budgets and also give ‘progress reports’ on what their offices have done with their capital votes?
What the 2018 budget has shown to us is that, the failure of the Federal Government to provide sustainable developments for the people, has forced the lawmakers to thinker on way to provide palliative measures in form of constituency projects for their people at the grassroots. It is actually not new, but the one who alleged is only trying to play politics and appeal to emotions of the public.
The lawmakers may definitely have their shortcomings and excesses which cannot be taken away from any human, but records have shown that the present NASS has surpassed past records in legislative achievements. Whatever issue SK has to join with the national assembly cannot take away the joy felt by people at the grassroots who are direct beneficiaries of infrastructural projects facilitated by the lawmakers, it can also not erase the huge number of bills with great impacts that this present NASS has successfully passed into law, the highest in the history of this nation.
The present national assembly is definitely not the pest responsible for the nation’s underdevelopment as SK would want us to believe in his “Budget as a Tool of Underdevelopment” piece.
