JOSHUA EGBODO writes as the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, issued Ad hoc committees of the House of Representatives, October 3rd deadline, to turn in their reports and wind down probe of alleged malfeasance in some federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)
Endless, fruitless probes?
Investigation remains an integral part of parliaments all over the world, and attractive to the citizens when they produce the expected results. In Nigeria, the constitution unequivocally gave the parliament a mandate to expose corruption and prevent wastage in the collective resources of the country. A reason why many celebrate when there are perceived exposure of wrong doings within public agencies.
Since the return of democracy in 1999, both chambers of the National Assembly have been carrying out several probes into the activities of federal government’s ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) as part of their oversight functions.
What is worrisome to keen observers, however, remained the inability of some of the panels involved to either conclude their work, or where they do, the reports ending up in the waste bins, only for similar probes on the same subject matters to be resurrected in succeeding assemblies, in exercises considered to be vicious cycles and heading nowhere.
Efforts of the 10th House of Reps
The 10th House of Representatives from its inauguration in June commenced legislative activities in immediately, a feat analysts saw as a shift from past practices of proceeding on break after the inauguration. The current House under Speaker Tajudeen Abbas held plenaries for weeks afterwards.
It was during the sessions that a good number of the investigative resolutions were passed, charging Ad hoc committees in most of the cases, with mandates for the exercises, understandably because of absence of the yet to be constituted standing committees then.
With clear timeframe attached to mandates of the committees to round off their work, only a few of them swung into action in their bids to deliver on the mandates.
Following is a peek into some such efforts:
Alleged job racketeering
One of the prominent investigations by an Ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives, which raised several controversies through the revelations made was on the alleged job racketeering and mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) by federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
Following a resolution of the House on a motion sponsored by Hon. Oluwole Oke on July 6, the committee was subsequently constituted under the leadership of Chairman of the House Committee on Navy, Hon. Adamu Yusuf Gagdi.
In his submissions, sponsor of the motion, Oke pointed out that the process of recruitment and payment of federal government employees was not transparent enough, more that advertisement for existing vacancies were not being made as required by law. He also noted that there were allegations of abuse of the IPPIS by some MDAs.
Though the panel’s report is being awaited, a lot of revelations were made against the Chairman of the Federal Character Commission, Farida Dankaka, over sale of jobs for millions of naira in bribes, an allegation she denied, and many more exposition by other critical stakeholders.
$4bn loss to crude oil theft
Also on July 12, the House of Representatives resolved to investigate alleged crude oil theft, cost of which was put at about $4 billion.
Hon. Philip Agbese (APC, Benue), who sponsored the motion leading to the resolution cited reports that “about 40 percent of crude oil loss is due to inaccuracies in measurement, and theft as metering errors continue to occur as a result of poor maintenance of metering facilities, thus resulting in lack of transparency in hydrocarbon accounting”.
Agbese added that in 2021 alone, Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day, a figure he pointed out, may have risen far above that.
“Fictitious” contracts issue against NIMASA
The House on July 12 approved to investigate alleged fictitious contract awards, gross mismanagement of billions of naira, and lopsided placement of directors by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion by Hon. Kingsley Chinda and five others. Chinda in moving the motion, pointed out allegations of questionable, inflated, and fictitious contract awards, particularly for non-operational speed boats, security surveillance contracts, and the Deep Blue Water project, which he noted led to revenue leakages and the award of contracts to cronies of the agency’s boss and other top management staff.
Reported N14trn revenue loss to tax waivers, others
Another Ad hoc panel got the mandate of the House on July 13, to investigate allegations of abuse of tax incentives, breaks, tax waivers by public institutions and companies benefitting from such incentives, which has reportedly cost the country about N14 trillion in revenue losses.
The decision was fallout of yet, another motion by Hon. Oluwole Oke, who insisted that Nigeria lost about eight trillion naira annually to such tax incentives and waivers, and as much as six trillion naira to firms which were in the habit of a busing the scheme.
Non-remittance of N2trn and more by the NNPCL
On July 18, the House of Representatives passed a resolution, mandating its committee on Finance to investigate the alleged non-remittance of about Two trillion naira and other taxes by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) into the federation account, following the adoption of a motion by Hon. Uduak Odudoh.
According to the lawmaker, the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) had severally accused the NNPCL of short-changing it by refusing to pay over N2trn to the Account from crude sales, royalties and other taxes.
He argued that rather than pay the outstanding revenue to the government, the NNPCL insisted that the federal government owed it over Four trillion naira in subsidy payments, power debt, and other charges.
Non-remittance and utilisation of NHF
On the alleged non-remittance of deductions from public servants into the National Housing Fund (NHF), as well as unclear nature of the utilisation of collected monies by the agency, the House on July 19, mandated an Ad hoc panel to investigate the alleged non–remittance and utilisation of the fund from 2011 to date.
The committee was under the leadership of Hon. Dachung Bagos from Plateau State. The resolution was sequel to a motion on ‘Need to Investigate the non–Remittance to the National Housing Fund and Utilization of the Fund from 2011 to date’, sponsored by Hon. Zakaria Dauda Nyampa.
CBN’s shut down of 47 MFBs
One more probe ordered by the House on July 26 was for its Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate the recent revocation of operational licenses of 47 microfinance banks (MFBs) across Nigeria. The committee was given four weeks to turn in report of its findings.
Hon. James Shuaibu Barka, had in a motion to that effect, drew attention of the House to the fact that on May 22, 2023, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the operational license of 47 Microfinance Banks across the country, saying, the closure had caused undue hardship to the people who depend on the banking and financial services offered by the bank for their small and medium enterprises, a motion and prayer that was unanimously adopted.
Revenue loss to gas flaring
On July 25, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, inaugurated an Ad hoc Committee to investigate the alleged $9.05 billion revenue loss tongas flaring in the country, spanning through the last 10 years, charging the committee to get to the root causes of gas flaring and make recommendations to end the practice.
Abuse, mismanagement of proceeds from peacekeeping missions
Furthermore, the House of Representatives on July 26, constituted an Ad-hoc committee to investigate alleged abuse and mismanagement of proceeds of peacekeeping operations from 2010 to 2022. The committee which headed by Hon. Shehu Raji was expected to undertake investigate the llehation, and report back in four weeks.
Bizarre vehicles auction by NIMASA, others
Most recently, revelations were made of how NIMASA and other agencies auction their vehicles at questionable prices. On July 6, 2023, the House of Representatives passed a resolution, setting up an Ad hoc committee, charged with the mandate to investigate the alleged illegal auctioning of federal government property, specifically by the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC); River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAS) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
The committee was expected to among other things, “unravel the extent of illegal auctioning and non-remittance of revenue realised into the Consolidated Revenue Fund” between 2010 and 2022, and report back its findings within four weeks, headed by Majority Leader of the House, Prof Julius Ihonbvere.
Inconclusive exercises?
From followers of the investigations, it was glaring that majority of the panels were yet to conclude their jobs, even in face of timelines contained in the respective resolutions giving them the mandates. A good number of such committees appeared to be yet, at the preambles, with no public investigative hearing held yet.
But Speaker Abbas’ wind down order
At the resumption plenary last Tuesday, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas didn’t mince words in directing all Ad hoc committees carrying out any mandate given it unfailingly turn in their reports on Tuesday 3rd October, 2023, or concede same to the relevant standing committee.
While welcoming colleagues back from the weeks-long annual recess, he said in pursuit of achieving the targets of the green chamber, “we set up several ad- hoc Committees to address matters of national importance. This was done before the constitution of our standing committees. The Ad-hoc Committees worked all through the recess in their different areas of mandate and I can report that they have made tremendous progress in the various tasks assigned to them.
“Let me use this opportunity to sincerely thank Members of these committees for the sacrifice, diligence, commitment and dedication that they brought to these important assignments. I am aware that most of the Ad-hoc Committees are yet to conclude their Reports. In the light of this development, all Ad-hoc Committees are required to conclude their assignments and submit their reports on or before 3rd of October, 2023.
“Accordingly, all Ad-hoc Committees shall cease to exist on October 3, 2023. However, in an event that any Ad-hoc Committee(s) is unable to conclude its assignment on this date, such tasks shall be yielded to the relevant Standing Committees”.
As the rush continues, pundits said it is doubtful for all the panels to meet the deadline.