Says executive/legislative rift good for democracy
‘Row over CG Ali’s uniform distraction’
Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has revealed that a whooping N12billion is being expended on the 2,563 legislative aides of National Assembly members annually.
Of this figure, the 109 senators have 763 with each having 7, while 360 members of the Green Chamber have 1800, with each of them having 5.
Dogara, who also believes the conflict between the legislature and the executive, specifically Senate, is a basic prerequisite for progress, also describes the row over the need for the Comptroller-General of Customs, Colonel Hameed Ali (retd) as mere distractions.
The speaker also expressed dissatisfaction with the level of compliance by the executive with resolutions by the National Assembly.
The nation’s number four citizen spoke on Tuesday evening when he hosted some editors at his office in Abuja.
He spoke against the backdrop of perceived corruption in the nation’s legislature, arguing that contrary to the belief in some quarters, the N115 billion annual budget, representing about 2% of the total national budget, is been expended on the over 3,000 workforce and agencies under the National Assembly.
According to him, “some aggregate this N115 billion and divide it by the number of Senators and Members and say that is what we take home as our allowances.
They call it jumbo! Is that the case? They fail to look at the bureaucracy; we have over 3,000 people working within this bureaucracy who are paid salaries, claims and entitlements all from this N115 billion. So, no one accounts with what happens to their money.
“The Senate President or Speaker doesn’t know what goes to them. Apart from that, we have the aides, each sitting member has 5 aides each, Senators have 7 each, so multiply 5 by 360 and see the number of aides, then 7 by 109. They draw their salaries there, the trips and everything.
“The last count made when I was Chairman, House Services, we were budgeting N12billion for legislatives aides a year. Then, we have the National Assembly Service Commission, it’s an agency not even here, they have their offices outside, unfortunately they don’t even have permanent structures, they are paying rent where they are. I don’t know the number of staff they have, but they also take rent and all from the N115billion, we have like 500 staff, we have commissioners representing the geo-political zones, plus the Chairman, all of them draw funds from here.
“Then we have NILS, I’ll implore you to go to where NILS is building their headquarters, with a facility that will also serve as a university, go and see what they have been able to achieve, you’ll be shocked. The headquarters is being built by Julius Berger. NILS draws funds from this N115 billion and they will account for it as well.
“We are going to put it there in the press, what do they do with the money given to them. Then we have the Public Complaints Commission, they don’t have any provision in the budget except from the funds they draw from us, so they will account for themselves.
“Then, we have the National Assembly Budget and Research Office just like you have the Congressional budget office in the U.S. Our goal is that they will be non-partisan in the analysis of annual budgets and they provide Members with timely tools for debate and engagement across board with the Executive when it comes to budgetary matters.
Then we didn’t have them, but now we have them and they also draw funds from this N115billion, so they will bring their budget and tell the world what they do with their money. At the end of the day when we publish these details, a lot of people will be shocked, but it will be published. And I hope that will put paid to the perceived corruption in the National Assembly.”
Speaking on the seeming frosty relationship between the legislature and the executive, the lawmaker said, “in the relationship between the executive and the legislature, there will be conflicts; the only problem is that sometimes, we cast conflicts as intricately bad.
“Conflicts may not be bad, as a matter of fact, sometimes conflicts are necessary for progress to be made. If you have a collection of conformists, chances are that they will never make progress.
“Even if they do; it will always relate to an existing order that is sustained over time, for you to have innovation and progress, people must be free to disagree, and it is only in disagreeing that progress is made.”
Commenting on the uniform row involving both the Senate and the CG Customs, the speaker challenged the media to look at the law and convey same to the people, saying, “So you have to look at all these issues before you come to a conclusion.
“As far as I am concerned, these are mere distractions, they are not supposed to be; the main issue is delivery, what is it that we are delivering? That is it.
“But for a decision to be made in line with what the Senate proposed to the House, you can only wait till the matter comes before the House and that decision will be taken and Nigerians will know.”
On the level of compliance by the executive with resolutions by the legislature, the lawmaker expressed dissatisfaction, stressing that a strategy was been put in place to reverse the trend.
“And as to whether we are satisfied with the level of compliance with our resolutions, the answer is no, and that is why in the last House, we established a Committee known as the Committee on Legislative Compliance and the essence of that Committee is to seek to compel compliance with resolutions of the Legislature and the Committee is working.
“They have a record of the resolutions that have been complied with and resolutions that have not been complied with. And for those that have not complied with the resolutions of the National Assembly, what we are trying to do is to give the Committee more bite.”
