An advocacy group, the Network for Growth and Actualization of Social Growth, has condemned the practice and management of constituency projects by the National Assembly.
In a statement on Thursday signed by its Country Head, Akingunola Omoniyi, the group described the practice as illegal, unconstitutional and destroying the country’s budgeting and procurement systems.
The group stated that the concept of constituency projects has no mention in the constitution or any extant law, but rather, it is a mere conduit pipe used by some corrupt politicians to siphon public funds.
It said that the National Assembly has gone beyond its constitutional boundary by hijacking procurement proceedings under the guise of performing oversight functions or protecting constituency interests.
The statement read, “Nigeria is a federation that clearly separates power in a manner that ensures that legislative, judicial and executive duties do not overlap. The judiciary has dutifully stayed within these separated powers and has never tampered with the appropriation/procurement process. Hence, the National Assembly, as lawmakers, should emulate the judiciary by ensuring that they maintain the sanctity of the sanctified notion of power separation.
‘The Public Procurement Act, 2007 is the making of the parliament that guides the conduct of public procurement including the origin of any public project which is through procurement planning committees of ministerial/extra-ministerial procuring entities. These committees have the legal mandate to conduct a project’s needs assessment, feasibility studies, and cost analysis, among other functions, till such a project finds its way into the appropriation bill as a budget line item for legislative scrutiny, otherwise known as budget defence.
“This budget defence can never strip ministerial procurement committees of vested power of project originator and does not confer same on the National Assembly. If at all, anything is wrong with a particular project or budget line item, such can only be referred back to the procuring entity for necessary corrections or, at best, outright removal from the entire appropriation.”
The group added that this deliberate overlap aggravates most of the corruption tendencies the country experiences regarding entities’ budgeting and public procurement systems.
It said, “This illegal constituency projects insertions is the reason procuring entities veer off their establishment mandates that give instances whereby research institutes abandon their research and development mandates for unrelated line-items such as the purchase of farm implements for farmers in selected rural communities and procuring motorcycles for selected rural communities. There is also a case of women’s affairs establishment budgeting for road construction projects in selected communities across the country.
“All this nonsense has not only destroyed the entire budgeting and procurement systems, it has also weakened the Assembly’s oversight powers along the procurement and budgeting line as a result of these undue influence and collusion.”
The group, however, asked the National Assembly to stop the unconstitutional practice of procurement interference, saying it has concluded plans to approach the court to seek necessary judicial interpretation.
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