BREAKING NEWS, Politics
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National Conference decisions on Part-time legislature and abolition of pension and severance benefits for former state governors elicit stiff opposition
| By Vincent Nzemeke | Jun. 23, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
THE ongoing national conference seems to have ruffled some feathers with some of the decisions it has taken lately. One of such decisions is that lawmaking in Nigeria should be a part-time job for members of the legislature at state and federal levels. Another decision of the conference is that there should be no pension and severance package for former state governors. These decisions have stepped on raw nerves and pitted the conference against serving lawmakers and governors.
The recommendations which gave effect to the decisions came from the committee on public service headed by Ebele Okeke with Ambassador Adamu Aliyu as deputy chairman. The committee hinged the recommendations on the popular demand by Nigerians to see a reduction in the high cost of governance at various levels in the country.
When the recommendations were read out by Idris Kutigi, chairman of the conference, some former law makers who are also delegates openly kicked against it making legislative business part-time. They said holding a political office was not the same thing as being a career public servant and that the Legislature, as presently constituted, was operating on a part-time basis because members do not sit for a whole week. But the dissenting voice of the few ex-legislators in the conference hall was drowned by majority of the delegates who voted overwhelmingly in support of the proposal.
Before the adoption of the recommendation by the conference, there had been a sustained agitation for part time legislature in the country. Many Nigerians have openly accused law makers at federal and state levels of earning fat salaries for doing nothing.
They have consistently argued that just as it obtains in some countries around the world, the business of law-making can be done on a part –time basis in order to help the country save some funds that could be channelled to other areas.
Oby Ezekwesili, a former minister and a strong advocate of part time legislation , recently suggested that running a part-time legislature would definitely reduce the cost of governance in the country. At a recent meeting with some non-governmental organisations in Abuja, Ezekwesili, former minister of education, said: “The National Assembly had, in eight years, deprived Nigerians of about N1 trillion which was paid to lawmakers as remunerations.”
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and now the Emir of Kano, is another vocal critic of full time legislation in Nigeria. In 2010, he was at daggers drawn with the law makers when he alleged that the National Assembly was contributing to the under-development of the country by gulping 25 percent of the recurrent vote in the annual budget of the federal government.
“As long as a quarter of the nation’s annual budget goes to the National Assembly as allowances and salaries, it will be difficult for the nation to achieve any meaningful development with the remaining 75 per cent, in view of the numerous challenges facing the nation”, he said at that time.
As they reacted to the assertions of Sanusi and Ezekwesili, the lawmakers have lashed out at the national conference delegates for suggesting and adopting such recommendation. Those who have reacted faulted the conference decision adding that restricting them to work on a part time basis would not, in any way, reduce the cost of governance.
At the end of the Senate plenary session on Thursday June 5, George Akume, Senate minority leader, who addressed journalists on behalf of his colleagues, said, “Part-time legislature is not, and can never be, the answer to executive impunity and corruption in the country”.
According to him, executive impunity, not full time legislature, was mainly responsible for the high cost of governance in the country. “Part-time legislature is not and can never be the answer to executive impunity and corruption in the country”, he said.
He argued that executive impunity was largely responsible for the high cost of governance in Nigeria over the years. “I am not surprised that such a proposal is coming from people that are not elected but handpicked by an individual for national assignment and, in fact, having no electoral value in the first place , to stand for and win any election. How will they understand and appreciate what constituted elected offices especially what the legislative seats stand for in the governance of the country under a democratic template.
“I do not believe, as wrongly proposed by the unelected delegates at the National Conference, that part-time legislature would help in appreciable terms, in the reduction of cost of governance in Nigeria. It cannot serve in any way as an antidote to executive impunity and corruption that had, over the years, been the cause of high cost of governance in the land.
“I am not, and I believe other lawmakers are not surprised that such a proposal came from the National Conference people who were hand-picked delegates. In a nutshell, as far as I am concerned, such proposal cannot see the light of the day because those who put the present legislative system in the country in place, have done the right thing for the country,” Akume belched.
Victor Ndoma-Egba, Senate leader, in his reaction, said the decision in favour of part time legislature stemmed out of a misunderstanding of the budgetary allocations of the various tiers of government. Like Akume, he argued that part time legislature and even the agitation for a unicameral legislature cannot solve the country’s problems.
Using the 2014 budget as signed by President Goodluck Jonathan to buttress his point, Ndoma-Egba argued that the legislature, all the components of the Senate and the House of Representatives, including staff, aides of the lawmakers and the civil servants working in the National Assembly gulp less than 3 per cent of the nation’s annual budget.
“This year’s budget without the Sure-P component is N4.6 trillion; by the time you add the Sure-P component, it will be about N4.9 trillion and the budget of the National Assembly is N150 billion. What percentage N4.9 trillion is N150 billion? It is under three percent. So, if you scrap one House, it is probably a fraction of three per cent and that will be your savings.
“The budget of the National Assembly is a fraction of what we have not been able to account for in our petroleum subsidy regime; that one is in trillions. The pension money that are stolen is in trillions, the import waivers are in trillions. So, as far as I am concerned, we are looking at an aspect that is too tiny because when we talk about the National Assembly, people forget that we have 360 members, and we have aides paid from there,” Ndoma-Egba said.
Like the senators, legislators at the House of Representatives also kicked against the proposal, arguing that the legislature was not to blame for the high cost of governance. It is the same thing at the state level where lawmakers have made no secret of their opposition to the conference’s decision.
Fidelis Nwachukwu, a former member of Abia State House of Assembly, disagrees with the premise of the recommendation, insisting that Nigeria’s democracy would be worse off with part time legislators. Dismissing the high cost factor, Nwachukwu noted that part-time legislators could still rev up their allowances through different means just to ensure that they get money.
His standpoint was shared by Donatus Nwamkpa, a former Abia state lawmaker and now Chairman, All Progressives Congress , APC, Abia State chapter. In an interview with a newspaper, he posited that part time legislature would not encourage continuity in law-making. Nwamkpa argued that the legislature does not cost the nation what the executive arm costs “If they say it is very expensive, what the legislative arm of government consumes in a month is not one tenth of what the executive arm consumes within a month,” he said.
With the groundswell of opposition against the conference decisions, it remains to be seen what will become of them. Some Nigerians have expressed fears that some of the radical recommendations of the national conference may not see the light of day due to fact that its deliberations and conclusions will be forwarded to the National Assembly for ratification.
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