The House of Representatives has said
it welcomes the request for a public hearing on the controversial jumbo
pay of its members and senators by a former Minister of Education, Mrs.
Oby Ezekwesili.
Ezekwesili had stated on Monday
that the National Assembly consumed over N1.1tr. since 2005.
She spoke at a dialogue on the “cost of
Governance in Nigeria”, where her comments dwelt on the controversial jumbo pay
of national lawmakers.
Twenty-four hours later, the Senate and the House
reacted, accusing her of blackmail.
They also alleged that she reeled out
false figures that failed to capture other variables, including capital
projects and the cost of running the bureaucracy of the legislature, among
others.
On Wednesday, she moved a step further,
challenging the National Assembly to a public hearing on the issue.
She had, said “I wish to state with
absolute respect for our lawmakers and our institution that it will be more
valuable and enriching for our democracy if instead of the abusive language in
their recent reaction, the National Assembly immediately offer me and the
rest of the Nigerian public, the opportunity of a public hearing on their
budgetary allocation and the very relevant issue of their remuneration.
“Doing so would be consistent with global
practice across countries of the world, where emphasis is on tenets of Open
Budget to enable citizens to track to the disaggregated level all use of public
resources across every arm and level of government.”
On Thursday, the House said it was
ready for the challenge but added that the former minister had questions
to answer.
A statement in Abuja by the Deputy Chairman,
House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Victor Afam-Ogene, said
because the legislature believed in transparency in governance, “the 7th
House of Representatives wholeheartedly welcomes her request for a public
hearing on the stated ideals.”
However, the House noted that Ezekwesili should
be prepared to explain her understanding of cost of governance and why she
narrowed it to the National Assembly, leaving out the Executive.
The statement observed that her comments dwelt
more on the salaries and allowances of lawmakers, excluding other expenditure
like capital projects and the cost of running the bureaucracy of the
legislative institution.
According to the House, this created the
impression that all the funds allocated to the National Assembly in successive
budgets since 2005 were spent on the payment of legislators’ wages.
The statement reads in part, “Nigerians
would remember that in the course of a similar misadventure in January
2013, Mrs. Ezekwesili had made wild claims bordering on the alleged frittering
of $45bn of the country’s external reserves, and $22bn in the
excess crude account.
“While she has yet to fully justify those
allegations, the former minister is this time seeking a fresh sparring partner
in the Legislature.
“If it were not so, why would an address which
centered on a “Cost of Governance in NIgeria” be curiously limited to an
inquest into the operations of the National Assembly, leaving out the other two
arms of government (the Executive and Judiciary) and arriving at the
rather simplistic suggestion of the introduction of a unicameral or part-time
legislature as the panacea for all Nigeria’s problems?
“Since it is public knowledge that whosoever
wishes to go to equity ought to do so with clean hands, we restate our earlier
posers which Mrs. Ezekwesili conveniently glossed over in her latest statement
on this issue, to wit: What is the percentage of the National Assembly’s
N150bn allocation in a budget of N4.9tr?
“Is it right to insinuate that the budgetary
allocation for the National Assembly is for ‘members salaries and allowances’,
while deliberately leaving out capital projects component, salaries of
legislative aides and the bureaucracy, as well as allied institutions such
as the Institute for Legislative Studies?
“What is the total disbursement to the Executive
and the Judicial arms of government over the same eight-year period?
“For an ex-official of government, who between
the 2006 and 2007 federal budgets, superintended over a total of N422.5bn as
Education Minister, what percentage of the public fund was expended by her as
recurrent cost?
Source: Punch
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