THE House of Representatives may be setting the stage to test the strings of its present relationship with the Executive arm of government. The House has asked its 90 committees to beam the searchlight on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) over alleged poor performance. According to insiders, the House is also aiming to use the investigations to reclaim some public confidence. According to insiders, the House hopes to reclaim some public confidence by exposing some of the lapses of government in the last one year.The committees see themselves on a voyage to uncover the poor management of the finances of most of the MDAs as they believe that many things are wrong in the accounting system that must be remedied urgently. It would seem that there is a craze for investigations in the House as the lawmakers are in search of issues of 'urgent national importance' that could warrant legislative inquiry.Meanwhile, most of the ministries and agencies that had appeared before the committees believe that the exercise would yield little result.The lawmakers cling to the provisions of Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution to stress the legitimacy of the investigations. They insist that they need to carry out oversight functions in furtherance of the principles of checks and balances, and to make government accountable and responsible for the welfare of the people.However, there are suspicions that there are other interests behind the investigations. This suspicion has attracted different responses from the lawmakers, most of who see the insinuations as the handiwork of mischief-makers.A Principal Officer in the House said that it should be expected that the legislature in conducting its oversight duties would ordinarily come under attack and criticisms. He claimed that there might be persons trying to utilise the commitment of the House for selfish motives.He said: 'Even the Bible notes the existence of a Judas in any gathering. There are 360 members in the House and it is our belief that everybody is working for the national interest. Should anyone be caught engaging in acts that could tarnish the image of the House, the Rules of the House are clear on how to deal with such persons. But we would not be deterred by sometimes unfounded allegations.'One issue that could ruffle the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature is the investigation into allegations that the President had embarked on what the lawmakers have described as a lopsided distribution of projects across the country.Adopting, without debate, a motion sponsored by Karimi Sunday, (Kogi, PDP), the House alleged that 86 per cent of the projects representing N760 billion was given to the South-South zone while the North Central got zero allocation.The Committee on Federal Character is set to probe the matter to determine if provisions of the Constitution were violated.Karimi had told his colleagues that, 'the action of the Federal Executive council in awarding the project violates section 14 (3) and 15 (5) of the constitution.'But the Presidency denied the suggestion that the Federal Government had cornered about 86 per cent of its approved projects amounting to over N760 billion out of N883 billion contracts awarded between March and August to the Niger Delta region.The presidential adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, explained that the Niger Delta projects listed in the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) publication, which formed the basis of the speculations were initiated by the late President Umaru Yar'Adua and not President Goodluck Jonathan.'In a statement, Abati stated, 'there is absolutely no truth to the insinuation that the Jonathan Administration is favouring the Niger Delta region at the expense of other geo-political zones in the distribution of developmental projects.'The projects, which were envisioned by the late President Yar'Adua to give full effect to his admirable commitment to redressing the under-development of the Niger Delta, are all contained in the Appropriation Act passed by the National Assembly which represents all sections of the country.'He noted that the projects and the amnesty programme for militants in the Niger Delta are a worthy legacy of Yar'Adua and stated that, 'instead of being pilloried and assailed by insinuations of regional favouritism, Jonathan ought to be commended for keeping faith with his predecessor's vision.'Another issue is the lawmakers' resolve to legislate the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri, a retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, out of the commission. A bill, sponsored by Bassey Ewa, (PDP, Akwa Ibom State), which has passed the Second Reading, seeks to reserve the headship of the EFCC to only retired judicial officers from the Supreme Court or Appeal Court, as is the case with the Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC).Incidentally, another lawmaker from Akwa Ibom, Senator Ita Enang, had sponsored a Bill seeking to merge the EFCC with the ICPC in the Senate and was frustrated. But unlike the Senate, the effort Ewa was supported and the proposal has been referred for committee considerations ahead of a third and final reading.If the bill succeeds finally and is passed into law, Waziri will find herself qualified to head the Investigation Unit of the commission, as a retired Assistant IG while only retired Supreme Court or Appeal Court Justices can head the commission.The lawmakers also are proposing an amendment to the EFCC Act that will bar anonymous petitions. The legislators argued that accommodating anonymous petitions violated the Evidence Act, which requires a petitioner to be identified and placed as a witness.According to the lawmakers, both changes are necessary to reposition the commission, which they Ena alleged had 'become a tool use for witch hunting, and its mode of operation has been outside the law.''The law says a suspect is to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. But at the EFCC, it is otherwise. They are treated as guilty until proven innocent,' said Uzor Azubuike, from Abia State.The lawmakers criticised the commission under Waziri, for parading several charges against suspects, but without significant convictions.Ewa said that, 'they have allowed themselves to be used and the laws are not followed. A person that has worked so hard and earned a name in the highest courts will not allow himself to be used by anybody after retirement.'Recently, the EFCC arraigned the head of one of the committees investigating a prominent government outfit, for alleged corrupt practices.Meanwhile the EFCC was one of the 41 agencies named by the Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Samuel Okura, as flouting the rules of auditing and accountability. The disclosure, which came out at a meeting with the committee on Public Accounts is one of the positive points from the investigations. At the meeting, the committee expressed concerns over what it called the alarming decrease in the impact of the audit system particularly on MDAs.It equally charged the Auditor-General of the Federation, and the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Ogunniyi Otunla, to effect changes to reverse the trend and avert the rise in corruption that could result from such audit failures.The chairman of the committee, Solomon Adeola, who presided over the meeting said the committee could no longer tolerate lukewarm attitudes to auditing by officials in the Office of the Auditor-General and the MDAs.Adeola said: 'The Auditor-General has no excuse for failing to properly audit the accounts of ministries and agencies of government because the constitution has sufficiently empowered him to carry out such responsibilities. If you carry out your duties very well, we may not even have needed to establish all these anti-graft agencies.'Another issue is the investigation into the alleged N450 billion owed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the Federation Account. The NNPC has already denied the allegation, insisting that there was no such debt.The chairman of the Finance Committee, Abdumumini Jibrin heads the ad-hoc committee charged with investigating the allegation. Last week, when the public hearing was to open on the matter, some ministers, critical to the investigation, were absent. The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Minister of Petroleum Resources counterpart, Mrs. Deziani Allison-Madueke could not attend the probe. Madueke sent a director from her ministry to represent her but the panel insisted on having the ministers to answer questions.The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, also did not appear before the panel. The non-appearance of three fuelled insinuations that the officials were deliberately avoiding the lawmakers.It was however learnt that both Okonjo-Iweala and Allison-Madueke were on President Goodluck Jonathan's delegation to Australia for CHOGOM meeting. That did not stop the lawmakers from threatening to issue a warrant of arrest on the absentees.The Speaker of the House Aminu Tambuwal harped on the importance of the probe. He said: 'Public allegations bordering on lack of transparency against persons, agencies or corporations are grave enough and deserving of prompt action by the Representatives who are under a duty to uphold and defend the Constitution.'The Chairman of the Committee on Petroleum Resources, (Upstream), Ajibola Muraina while citing sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution as amended which empowers the House to investigate and order the arrest of any erring public official, said, 'the situation we are has brought us the inability to do things right. We are prepared to champion that things are done properly; we do not believe in taking excuses, therefore it is not going to be business as usual in line with the new legislative agenda.'Jibril who took a swipe at the officials for non-transparence said, 'the embarrassing issue of non-remittance of N450 billion domestic crude revenues by NNPC could have been avoided with transparent accounting for our revenues.'More worrisome is the fact that the un-remitted funds are known to be in excess of N700 billion. Our journey towards vision 20:2020 cannot be realised with a whopping N1.5 trillion being paid as subsidy on petroleum products just in one year, without empirical basis.'Despite the enormous revenue accruing from crude oil sales daily, we have continued to operate deficit budget simply because of our inability to track our revenues.'He explained that the over $50 billion of crude oil revenue is still trapped in the hands of the major lifters of Nigeria crude oil with the knowledge of NNPC. 'Our Excess Crude Account, which has been re-named 'Sovereign Wealth Funds' has been so bastardised that over $5 billion was appropriated without parliamentary approval.
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