Cost of governance: Ezekwesili challenges lawmakers to debate

Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has insisted that the National Assembly gulped approximately N1tn in the last eight years. She has, therfore, challenged the lawmakers to a public hearing to defend her claims. In a statement on Wednesday, she defended her submissions at the Civil Society Roundtable hosted by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, on Monday, where she gave details on the budgetary allocations to the National Assembly in the last eight years. Ezekwesili’s presentation was immediately contested by members of the National Assembly, who rebuked her for what they described as blackmail against the legislature. She said “I wish to state with absolute respect for our lawmakers and our institution that it will be more valuable and enriching for our democracy if instead of the abusive language in their recent reaction, the NASS immediately offered me and the rest of the Nigerian public, the opportunity of a public hearing on their budgetary allocation and the very relevant issue of their remuneration. “Doing so would be consistent with global practice across countries of the world, where emphasis is on tenets of Open Budget to enable citizens to track to the disaggregated level all use of public resources across every arm and level of government.” She argued that her presentation approached the topic more broadly, by calling attention to the fundamentally unsustainable economic structure that had caused Nigeria’s development over the last 53 years to lag behind those of countries with similar political history. She said there had been attendant high poverty level of 69 per cent of Nigerian citizens, as recorded by the National Bureau of Statistics. “As part of the aspect of my presentation that touched on management of public finance, I provided eight years data on budgetary allocations or transfers to the National Assembly. “The data in question is publicly available information from the Ministry of Finance, which reveals that the allocations to the National Assembly, known as Statutory Transfers, between 2005 and 2013 were approximately one trillion naira,” she said. The figures, according to Ezekwesili, are as follows: 2005, N 54.79bn; 2006, N54.79bn; 2007, N 66.4bn; 2008, N114.39bn; 2009, N158.92bn; 2010, N 150bn; 2011, N 150bn; 2012, N150bn; and 2013, N150bn.