As if that was not enough, Buhari also drew the ire of the public against federal lawmakers when he said that he was having problems with the National Assembly because they were refusing to subject themselves to the new policy of a Treasury Single Account (TSA). “As for the National Assembly, we are having problems with them. I think everybody has to subject themselves to TSA as far as federal money is involved,” the President fired again.
And when the panelists reminded him that as the President, he might have the power to try to stop the NASS car purchase, Buhari responded thus: “I will explore that power to stop the expenditure of N50 billion for cars by the National Assembly.”
But the story changed when the lawmakers came out to state their own side of the story. The National Assembly pointed to misinformation on the part of the Executive on one hand and public ignorance of the workings of NASS on the other hand as being responsible to the bag image of the Parliament.
The chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas maintained this position when he led members of the Standing Committee on a courtesy visit to the corporate headquarters of LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group in Abuja a few days ago. He took time to counter some of the issues raised against the lawmakers.
On Alleged N4.7bn Vehicle Purchase:
Namdas told a team of LEADERSHIP Editors that people are made to believe that it is only in National Assembly that government is procuring vehicles for official use, whereas. He said, “That is how I look at it. But it is a civil service thing, if you go to any state or any ministry, there are vehicles that are in their pool, that they use to receive visitors and other things and these vehicles were being bought for government activities.
“So, no matter how you want to reduce costs, we will still need vehicles to operate and the public is saying that we should do oversight functions, now how can we do oversight functions when we don’t have vehicles, this is the situation. Up to now that I speaks, in the last six months that we have operated, we have not collected one single naira as car loan. But the story is that we have collected car loan and we still want to buy car, it’s impossible.
“I can tell you as the chief spokesman of the House of Representatives, between man and God and anybody can go and investigate, I am still using my campaign vehicle. I came here in a bus and can go see the nature of the bus. And the vehicles we want to buy are not even vehicles for our personal use, they are vehicles for the National Assembly meant for oversight functions.
“Again, you will ask for example that why are we having 96 committees and we are buying vehicle for each committee member; let answer this question, every member in the National Assembly belong to not less than seven committees, so if you buy one vehicle for media committee and he belong to several other committees and I also belong to several others and he come here with one vehicle and I go there with another one. You can’t use one vehicle all through.
“They tell you that the President said his vehicle can last for ten years and I said it is true with all due respect, his vehicles can last for ten years because the vehicles will leave from Aso Rock to the Airport or to Eagle Square, so it can last for ten years. But the vehicle am going to use to oversight, I have to go to Jos, go to Lafia on Nigerian roads for four years, how will it be?
“So, we are saying that if Nigerians will be made to know that it is this National Assembly that clears ministers. I got elected and I am working before a minister is appointed and yet he has five cars in his fleet or convoy but just for me to get one vehicle to do my official work, they say I cannot get it. So these are the issues”.
On TSA:
On the alleged uncooperative attitude of NASS towards the TSA policy, the lawmakers’ explanation almost left much to be desired on the part of the executive arm of government. Pundits say knowingly or unknowingly, the explanation seeks to exert undue political control over the legislature against the dictates of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The House spokesman noted that the TSA policy was meant to streamline government’s revenues from its revenue-generating agencies, hence NASS cannot be part of the policy since it does not generate revenue.
Namdas said, “We are a arm of government and the Constitution allow us to operate independently. We oversight the Executive. Now, the TSA is mainly made for people who generate revenues and we don’t generate revenue. Our expenditure as the National Assembly cannot be subjected to the Executive for oversight again,” Namdas said.
The lawmakers also challenged any ministry, department and agency of government (MDA) to expose any member of the Lower House who seeks gratification in the course of discharging his or her legislative oversight functions even as the House also denied underhand dealings in its oversight of MDAs.
Namdas said, “It is true that these are part of the stories people tell about us that we go for brown envelopes. Those that going to give the brown envelopes, let them expose those members (of the House).
“What am saying is that, in the 8th Assembly, these are different issues and there could be challenges all along there but let people do their job and I want to tell you that in this Assembly we are going to have zero tolerance for corruption”
On NASS Budget Increment:
In the course of the interaction, Namdas took time to explain why the annual budget of the National Assembly (NASS) astronomically increased from N50 billion at the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999 to N120 billion in the last fiscal year of 2015. The Lower House said against the backdrop of public misinformation, the geometric increase of the NASS budget was informed by the expansion of the NASS structure overtime.
Recall that NASS had expended an annual budget of N150 billion from 1999 to 2014, which was consistently criticised as too much for the legislature. The figure however dropped to N120 billion in 2015 while another N5 billion has been chunked off the annual budget in the 2016 budget estimates, leaving the NASS and its bureaucracy with N115 billion allocation.
Namdas said, “In 1999, each member of the National Assembly, be it Senator or House of Reps member had just two aides and today, we have about five each. If you have 469 members of National Assembly, multiply it by five, you going to get 2,345 aides and their salaries per annum is about N12 billion, so it has to increase.
“And at that time, there were no National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS), no National Assembly Service Commission, no National Assembly Budget Office. So, now we have them. Even the staff strength at that time has increased, so the cost just has to increase.
“In the National Assembly, the House of Reps was a department, now it is a directorate with other departments under it. The Senate was a department, it become a directorate with other departments under it, it increases cost. So, if Nigerians can be told of what is happening, we can be forgiven but we are just looked at as if we are corrupt people,” he explained.
On Implementation Of NASS Annual Budget:
On the secrecy surrounding the implementation of NASS annual budgets, the spokesman of the House, who was accompanied by his deputy, Hon. Jonathan Gaza and other members to LEADERSHIP, promised that the 8th Assembly will transparently attend to its 2016 Budget after passage, adding that its details will be made public.
“By the grace of God, 2016 Budget is about to come and Nigerians will see the kind of transparency we are going to put,” he added.
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