“But for constituency projects, many
rural communities would never have known about the existence of the Federal
Government let alone benefitting from budgets. Thanks to the mechanism of the
projects which ensures that every year projects such as solar powered
bores(sic) [bore holes], hand pumps, school infrastructure, dispensaries,
skills acquisition centres, poverty alleviation (sic), etc. are implemented,
however poorly the implementation” (bold and italics added).
Hon Abdulrazak Namdas, Chairman,
House Committee on Media and Publicity, “NASS and Constituency projects,” in
The Nation, July 1st 2016
Two of the major justifications for
the assertion that so-called constituency projects are “a Nonsense that must be
abolished” are contained in the above quote from a recent article by Honourable
Namdas. After demonstrating the emptiness of the legislator’s claimsfor
constituency projects, I’ll draw attention to his incorrect and misleading
references to Kenya’s Constituency Development Fund and “pork barrel” politics
in the USA.
Non-functional, abandoned and
phantom projects
If every member of the 5th, 6th and
7th National Assembly (NASS) – a total of 469 in the Senate and the House of
Representatives – implemented a couple of constituency projects per year, more
than 11,000 projects would have been implemented before the advent of the 8th
NASS in 2015. Even on the admission of Namdas that only 40 percent of funds
appropriated for the projects was released for the purpose on average, there
would be, in theory, about 4500 projects implemented nationwide. The bad news
is that by 2010 when actual implementation of constituency projects between
2007 and 2009 was assessed in six states across the geopolitical zones
(Adamawa, Edo, Imo, Jigawa, Kwara and Lagos states), the findings were
uniformly negative: completed but non-functional projects, incomplete and
abandoned projects and phantom (non-existent) projects. Phantom projects means
that monies made available to the legislators concerned were corruptly
appropriated as additional “allowances”. The on-going “budget fraud”
accusations and counter-accusations in NASS further underscores the argument
for the abolition of constituency projects.
I led the team of experts that
undertook the 2010 assessment. The findings were recently corroborated by the
report of BudgITNigeria (a civic technology organisation) that tracked 436
constituency projects in 16 states across the six geopolitical zones: “We have
221 abandoned projects, 145 were completed, and 77 are on-going”. The June 2016
report sheds some light on the poor implementation or non-implementation of
projects: “Many projects were signed off and contractors were paid, with little
or no follow-up reporting and assessment by government authorities.”
Given this strong evidence about the
preponderance of abandoned, incomplete, non-functional and phantom projects,
the legislators’assertion that rural communities (or citizens in general)
benefit from annual budgets through constituency projects is bunkum.
Responsibility for developing “rural
communities” in a federal system
Hon. Namdas must know that the 1999
Constitution assigns responsibility for services that are most impactful on the
standard of living of citizens in the rural communities to states and local
governments: primary education, primary health, agriculture and town/village
and rural roads. Because the majority of legislators’ interventions that are
touted as mechanisms for making rural citizens know about “the existence of the
Federal Government” relate to these functions, they constitute encroachments on
the constitutional functions of state and local governments. It is also the
case that the executive arm of government at the federal level also encroaches
on the constitutional functions of state and local governments with President
Obasanjo’s contracts for health clinics in each of the 774 local governments
during his final few months in office as a notorious example. Mercifully,
President Yar’Adua sensibly scrapped them on the ground that it was a
unilateral intervention without consultation with state governments.
Without question, the maintenance of
the 1992 centralising revenue allocation formula (52.6 percent to the federal
government, 26.72 percent to states, and 20.6 percent to local governments), is
a major explanation for the continuing encroachment of both the legislative and
executive arms of the federal government on the constitutional functions of
subnational governments. I would like to argue strongly that legislating a new
formula that reduces federal government’s allocation to between 40 and 45
percent should be a priority for the 8th NASS.
State and local governments that are
short-changed under the existing revenue allocation formula lack both the
resources and the incentive to ensure the functionality of constituency
projects that are unilaterally selected and sited by national legislators. Most
often, the legislators are regarded, in the logic of competitive politics, as
competitors or interlopers or both by state governors and local government
chairmen.
African and International
Experiences: cherry-picking is not comparison
The references to the experiences of
Kenya and the USA by Namdas and other legislators who have tried to champion
constituency projects amount to cherry-picking; they do not merit to be
considered as comparisons. For obvious reasons, the legislators make no
reference to the experience of the Philippines where the country’s Supreme
Court unanimously declared “pork barrel politics” unconstitutional in November
2013 on the ground that it violates the principle of separation of powers.
Regarding the USA where pork barrel
politics dates back to the 1800s, Nigerian legislators fail to acknowledge that
the appropriation of federal government budget for legislators’ districts is
most often in respect of federal functions: federal public works projects,
certain national defense spending projects and federal agriculture subsidies.
Of course, our legislatorswould not like to be reminded that in the USA, the
majority party occupies all the leadership positions in both the Senate and the
House of Representatives unlike the hybrid sharing of leadership positions
between the majority and minority parties in the 8thSenate that is poisoning
executive-legislative relations. Yes, they cherry-pick among political
practices in the US presidential system and think they are making comparisons.
In the Kenyan case where the
practice of constituency projects through a Constituency Development Fund (CDF)
was the first in Africa in 2003, our legislators fail to acknowledge that the
practice which is comparable to what currently exists in Nigeria was declared
unconstitutional by Kenya’s High Court in February 2015. The CDF Act in force
in that country since February 2016 assigns limited role to MPs
(parliamentarians) in the selection of projects to be funded – they can only
mobilise the public in their constituencies to prioritise development projects
while the selection and implementation of projects is the responsibility of a
CDF manager and committee in each constituency. Significantly, there is
emphasis on MPs’oversight role over the committees and managers. See Nation
(Nairobi) February 20 2016. In contrast, in the Nigerian case, there is zero
public participation in the selection of projects and implementation
arrangements lack clarity and there is no attention to legislators’oversight
role.
Overall, the selective and incorrect
references that NASS defenders of constituency projects make to Kenyan and US
experiences are misleading.
Conclusion
Of the three constitutional
functions of NASS -representation, law-making and oversight of the executive –
it is through the oversight role that legislators can seek to promote the
delivery of quality services to all citizens by the executive in respect of the
constitutional functions of the federal government. It is also through their
oversight role that they can ensure that there is fairness in the distribution
of services across states and geopolitical zones. (Legislators at the state
level are also expected to use their oversight role to ensure that there is
fairness in the distribution of services across local government areas and
communities). It is important to stress that given the existing constitutional
assignment of functions to the three tiers of government, it is not the
business of federal legislators to select and site rural development projects.
Hon. Namdas must know that the 1999
Constitution assigns responsibility for services that are most impactful on the
standard of living of citizens in the rural communities to states and local
governments: primary education, primary health, agriculture and town/village
and rural roads. Because the majority of legislators’ interventions that are
touted as mechanisms for making rural citizens know about “the existence of the
Federal Government” relate to these functions, they constitute encroachments on
the constitutional functions of state and local governments. It is also the
case that the executive arm of government at the federal level also encroaches
on the constitutional functions of state and local governments with President
Obasanjo’s contracts for health clinics in each of the 774 local governments
during his final few months in office as a notorious example. Mercifully,
President Yar’Adua sensibly scrapped them on the ground that it was a
unilateral intervention without consultation with state governments.
Without question, the maintenance of
the 1992 centralising revenue allocation formula (52.6 percent to the federal
government, 26.72 percent to states, and 20.6 percent to local governments), is
a major explanation for the continuing encroachment of both the legislative and
executive arms of the federal government on the constitutional functions of
subnational governments. I would like to argue strongly that legislating a new
formula that reduces federal government’s allocation to between 40 and 45 percent
should be a priority for the 8th NASS.
State and local governments that are
short-changed under the existing revenue allocation formula lack both the
resources and the incentive to ensure the functionality of constituency
projects that are unilaterally selected and sited by national legislators. Most
often, the legislators are regarded, in the logic of competitive politics, as
competitors or interlopers or both by state governors and local government
chairmen.
African and International
Experiences: cherry-picking is not comparison
The references to the experiences of
Kenya and the USA by Namdas and other legislators who have tried to champion
constituency projects amount to cherry-picking; they do not merit to be
considered as comparisons. For obvious reasons, the legislators make no
reference to the experience of the Philippines where the country’s Supreme
Court unanimously declared “pork barrel politics” unconstitutional in November
2013 on the ground that it violates the principle of separation of powers.
Regarding the USA where pork barrel
politics dates back to the 1800s, Nigerian legislators fail to acknowledge that
the appropriation of federal government budget for legislators’ districts is
most often in respect of federal functions: federal public works projects,
certain national defense spending projects and federal agriculture subsidies.
Of course, our legislatorswould not like to be reminded that in the USA, the
majority party occupies all the leadership positions in both the Senate and the
House of Representatives unlike the hybrid sharing of leadership positions
between the majority and minority parties in the 8thSenate that is poisoning
executive-legislative relations. Yes, they cherry-pick among political
practices in the US presidential system and think they are making comparisons.
In the Kenyan case where the
practice of constituency projects through a Constituency Development Fund (CDF)
was the first in Africa in 2003, our legislators fail to acknowledge that the
practice which is comparable to what currently exists in Nigeria was declared
unconstitutional by Kenya’s High Court in February 2015. The CDF Act in force
in that country since February 2016 assigns limited role to MPs
(parliamentarians) in the selection of projects to be funded – they can only
mobilise the public in their constituencies to prioritise development projects
while the selection and implementation of projects is the responsibility of a
CDF manager and committee in each constituency. Significantly, there is
emphasis on MPs’oversight role over the committees and managers. See Nation
(Nairobi) February 20 2016. In contrast, in the Nigerian case, there is zero
public participation in the selection of projects and implementation
arrangements lack clarity and there is no attention to legislators’oversight
role.
Overall, the selective and incorrect
references that NASS defenders of constituency projects make to Kenyan and US
experiences are misleading.
Conclusion
Of the three constitutional
functions of NASS -representation, law-making and oversight of the executive –
it is through the oversight role that legislators can seek to promote the
delivery of quality services to all citizens by the executive in respect of the
constitutional functions of the federal government. It is also through their
oversight role that they can ensure that there is fairness in the distribution
of services across states and geopolitical zones. (Legislators at the state
level are also expected to use their oversight role to ensure that there is
fairness in the distribution of services across local government areas and
communities). It is important to stress that given the existing constitutional
assignment of functions to the three tiers of government, it is not the
business of federal legislators to select and site rural development projects.
Source: Vanguard
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