Lawmakers Spent N1 Trillion in Eight Years - Ezekwesili

26 August 2013 , Source: Leadership Since 2005, National Assembly members alone have been allocated N1trillion," Ezekwesili said. Besides, she stressed, a research conducted in Britain identified Nigerian legislators as being the highest paid in the world. "N699b went to banks as interest on borrowed loans in 2012 alone; also, 82 per cent of Nigeria's budgetary cost goes for recurrent expenditure," she said. Mrs Ezekwesili spoke in Abuja while delivering a keynote address at a one- day dialogue session on the cost of governance in Nigeria jointly organised by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and the Federal Public Administration Reform Programme, United Kingdom (UK). The former Minister said the long military rule might have had a negative impact on governance in the country. She said one of the greatest mistakes of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in which she served, was that Nigeria delved into democracy without necessarily doing away with the military mentality. "There is a drawback to the military; one major mistake of the government under which I served was that we simply got into democracy and did not spend reasonable time of removing the militaristic ethos and principles from the minds of every citizen, every leader and every institution," she said. Ezekwesili demanded proactive engagement of the government by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and others and canvassed part-time legislation as a means of lowering the cost of governance. She said part-time legislature would ensure that the right people got into governance, adding: "Things will improve through part-time legislations. It will also filter the number of people who will go into the National Assembly. "You must have means of livelihood and you don't need to depend on public funds. We need to learn more on the good and bad side of it. But we can't rule out the possibility. "There should be effective demand by civil societies for the Steve Oronsaye report. You should demand for a mini national transparent dialogue because it touches on the heart of good governance", she said. Mrs Ezekwesili, also advised the diversification of the economy, noting that over-dependence on oil is bound to drag the nation down in view of the alarming poverty level in the country despite its numerous natural and human resources. She said: "While other countries are moving forward, Nigeria is entrapped in something called oil, where $1.6 billion is lost to theft annually. "We must debate public policies as a nation because if we don't debate public policies, we are going to make silly mistakes because we didn't involve the stakeholders. So, policy debates must be encouraged. The former minister went on: "The culture of personalising policy dialogues must stop. When you have a problem, you don't leave the problem and begin to chase other matters. I feel sorry for any person who is fairly okay in this nation and doesn't care about the poor because there will be an implosion. "Whatever treatment that is given to the poor and vulnerable in the society must matter to everybody because except we have social inclusion in the society, we stand the danger of implosion and it has happened in other countries which ignored the vulnerabilities. "We have to arrest what will happen if we don't address the level of poverty in Nigeria." Ezekwesili, infuriated by the denial of her presentation, went ahead to challenge the lawmakers to a public debate to defend her claims. In a statement within the week, she defended her submissions at the Civil Society Roundtable hosted by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre 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.