Executive Consumes 50 per cent of National Budget, Bankole Alleges

Posted by admin Headlines, House, Legislature Sunday, December 19th, 2010

SPEAKER, House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, has argued that the Executive arm of government should be blame for high cost of governance in Nigeria, claiming that the first tier of government expends about 50 per cent of the nation’s budget on itself.
Bankole, who was Guest Speaker at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria yesterday, faulted the submission by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Lamido Sanusi, that the National Assembly spent more than 25 per cent of the national budget on the personal emoluments of federal legislators.
He insisted that it was time to put the records straight by probing the expenditure of the executive “whose spending doubled the figure provided against the National Assembly members by Sanusi.”
The Speaker also claimed that the lawmakers have long kept sealed lips over alleged corrupt activities of government officials in the executive amounting to several billions of naira for which the legislators raised queries to the presidency but no action was taken.
Bankole, who opened a can of worms on how past budgets were violated by the executive arm of government, and how billions of naira meant for the implementation of the power project, road construction, runway rehabilitation were misappropriated, disclosed that “when the President presented this year’s budget to the National Assembly, we told him and the officials of government that they must attach details of both unspent funds of Ministries, parastatals and other government agencies to the budget, and the earlier queries we raised on issues relating to project implementation must be answered and attached.”The Speaker argued putting the National Assembly in bad light before Nigerians was unacceptable and challenged those who provided the statistics on the emoluments of federal lawmakers to disprove his claim that the executive arm of government’s spent more than 50 per cent of the nation’s budget on their personal emoluments.
His words: “Some people are collectingNigeria’s money meant for government and these people are not putting it into the treasury. Many malpractices were reported to the anti-corruption agencies but nobody has been questioned; nobody has been arrested. After all the noise we made on power generation in this country and putting up reforms, nobody has been questioned. But I have done my own job, we at the House of Assembly have done our own job which is to investigate and expose; we cannot prosecute.
“Somebody came to the National Assembly to say that we collect 25 per cent. I don’t want to argue that. I know that the National Assembly’s budget this year is about N130 billion. But the person saying that we collect 25 per cent, his own budget is N300 billion. So if we take 25 per cent he takes 50 per cent. It is there on record. The take of governors is higher. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
“This is not a hundred meter race, it is a long distance. Gone are the days whereby you will look for 15 minutes of fame. Nigerians can no longer be fooled. You made yourself popular for 15 minutes playing to the gallery; it will only work for a short time.”
Speaking on the topic, “The challenges And Prospects of Transforming The Nigerian Democratic Polity”, Bankole stated: “Today, the good news, in spite of the obvious shortcomings, is that Nigerians have demonstrated that the bottom line is that Democracy in Nigeria is a work in progress. Like in many other developing countries and emerging democracies around the world, and we all have a duty to ensure its sustenance.”wp_posts