House Seeks Financial Autonomy
Spends N100m on retreat
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja and Hammed Shittu in Osogbo
The House of Representatives yesterday concluded its three - day retreat in Minna, the Niger State capital with a resolve to pressure the presidency to grant it financial autonomy by placing its funding on first line charge.
The House which made its position known in a 15-point communiqu� also said that future revenue profile should accompany all Appropriation bills to be forwarded for passage, while also insisting that budget implementation has to be strictly enforced.
On the perceived attempt to gag House members, Hon. Binta Bebeji noted that "members should be allowed to express their views. The practice of stopping them through the parties and other people should stop and that is the reason they call us names. Initially, we were allowed to express ourselves but after sometime, those who spoke were called and asked to stop contributing on the floor".
Hon. Usman Bugaje called for a change of style in the passage of bills. According to him, House members were not thorough in scrutinising bills brought before them thereby giving the impression that they were in a hurry to pass them.
He cited the 2004 budget as an example, regretting that apart from members not debating it, they never had a grasp of what they passed, hence distorting the legislative system in the way they did their job.
"Our passage of the 2004 budget was criminal. I think we should have been more responsible in our legislative process. Only three lines of the 2004 budget were passed by the House, the recurrent, capital and the total of the budget, no other thing was deliberated upon nor did it reflect our wish. I have asked many members and I am yet to see any one who is happy with the way the budget was passed", he said.
Other points of the resolution reached at Minna zone included the hastening of the adoption of the code of conduct for the House, hastening of passage of people-oriented bills and need for committees to work together in harmony.
The members who were lectured on the workings of the Due Process Office by Senior Special Assistant on Budget Monitoring, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili later included in their resolution that the process of certification by her office should be hastened so that government programmes would not be unduly stalled while transparency and accountability would be enthroned.
Also at the Osun State centre of the House retreat, members declared that there was need to move beyond traditional conception of national security, which was narrowly limited to increased security budgets and the expansion in the size of the security personnel in the nation's armed forces.
The House members stated that the country's conception of security should be broadened in the area of provision of employment, job security and the expansion of access to the welfare needs of the people.
In a communiqu� issued at the end of the three-day retreat at Miccom Golf Hotel and Resorts Ada, Osun State, the House members suggested that the way to bring effectiveness into the legislative assignments was for the National Assembly to have financial autonomy.
Members stated that lack of financial autonomy tends to compromise the integrity of the House in relation to the executive arm.
They faulted the continuous pumping of funds to the police, army, navy, air force, and state security services adding that such an initiative would not bail out the country from the security lapses.
The participants added that the only way to put an end to the social insecurity in the nation's polity was to provide jobs to all the unemployed graduates so as to reduce tension among the citizenry in the country.
They frowned at the refusal of the executive to carry the legislature along in the implementation of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS).
The communiqu� restated the House's commitment to refocus and redouble its efforts in the review of the 1999 Constitution to ensure among others, the restructuring of nation's federation.
The communiqu� also appealed to the Federal Government to address as a matter of urgent priority, the welfare needs of the citizenry and pursue economic policies that would ensure the empowerment of the vast majority of the people so as to enhance national security.
Meanwhile, the leader of the House of Representatives and Chairman, Planning Committee for 2004 Retreat, Hon. Abdul Ningi, yesterday said the committee spent N100 million on the retreat taking place in three centres in the country.
Answering reporters questions at Ada, Ningi stated that the retreat should have taken place three months ago, but was postponed as a result of the outbreak of violence in Plateua State and its attendant extension to Bauchi centre.
According to him, during the preparation for the retreats, the committee spent the sum of N30m for the three centres of Ada, Minna and Bauchi before it was later postponed.
He said that "after the peaceful resolution of Plateau crisis, the committee then resolved to set the date of retreat for August 17 - 19, with venues spread across three centres in the country.
According to Ningi, the committee then decided to budget another N70 million to cover the cost for the retreats at the three centres in the country, hence bringing the total financial expenses to N100 million.
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