WELL DONE DISTINGUISHED SENATORS

[Dan-Borno]

Senate queries N1bn budget proposal for ministers' vehicles       
Written by Emmanuel Aziken & Laide Akinboade     
Monday, 03 December 2007 

THE Senator Smart Adeyemi-led Senate Committee on Federal Character and Governmental Affairs yesterday queried the N1 billion budget proposal for the purchase of new vehicles for ministers and special advisers.

The same Committee, also yesterday, turned down the budgetary proposal of the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) following the failure of the Director-General of the agency, Mrs. Modupe Adelaja, to personally defend the proposals.


Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, had defended the proposal but received the objection of Committee members led by Senator Adeyemi and Committee member Ayogu Eze.


In his defence, Kingibe said the new vehicles were to be pooled, saying the ministers, special advisers and other top government officials would only use them and return them to the pool after each use. He further affirmed that the purchase of the new vehicles did not amount to a reversal of the monetisation policy earlier introduced by the immediate past administration.


The 2008 budget proposals for SMEDAN presented by Mr. Femi Adebiyi, a director in the agency on behalf of the Director-General, Mrs. Adelaja, was turned down by the Committee.


"It is not the custom of the Senate for assistants to come and present budget proposals to us. We are particularly interested in what you are going to present to us for many reasons. Your agency is very important, taking a look at the 7-point agenda of this administration.

We have to empower your agency to be able to reduce the rate of unemployment in Nigeria.

To us in the Senate, your report is unacceptable. I think it is better you get across to her, if she doesn't come down here before we work on the final passing of the budget, I can assure you that you are going to have zero allocation."


Also yesterday, the Senate Committees on Education and Information and Media commenced their hearings on the budgetary proposals for the ministries and parastatals under their purview.

_________________________________________________________
This is what if the Senate will continue can bring back status in the
eyes of the average Nigeria.  While the Federal Government has been
preaching monetisation, i wonder why budgeting 1 billion for Ministers
only, how many cars and which brand is it that will cost such an amount
of tax payers (fuel money).

Even the SFG (my kinsman) couldnt satisfy the Senators, because it
sounds ridiculous and one of those ways the Executive diverts public
money.  One issue worth of consideration is the role played by the
Public Servant, because they are the eyes of the Ministers and other
Chief Executive who were appointed based on political appointments,
I think the EFCC and the ICPC should beam their search light more on
this type of executive stealing through the legal means of budgetery
provisions, especially at the National Level.

DB supplicates as usual:

Ya ubangiji Allah, muna rokonka, duk wani shugaba wanda bashi da
niyyar kawo sauyi a cikin wannan kasa tamu najeriya, duk da cewa
yana ganin irin wahalhalu da bayin Ka suke sha, to Ya Matin, kayi
masa kamuwa irin wadanda kayi wa mutanen Aadawa da Samudawa
Alfatiya.

[HUSNAA]

Ameen Ameen DB.
Dama wannan kinsman din naka bai can can ci ace har yanzu yana cikin gwamnati ba. Sune manyan barayin ta tun asali. ji da Allah tun zamanin IBB yake cikin gwamnati, yaki matsawa yabaiwa majiya kuzarin kwalkwaluwa da adalci wuri a ga nasu kamun ludayin.
Wai kuma yanzu 1 billion naira to buy cars...ni ko kunyar ambato irin wa 'yannan makudan kudade ma basayi.

[Muhsin]

Ya ubangiji Allah, muna rokonka, duk wani shugaba wanda bashi da
niyyar kawo sauyi a cikin wannan kasa tamu najeriya, duk da cewa
yana ganin irin wahalhalu da bayin Ka suke sha, to Ya Matin, kayi
masa kamuwa irin wadanda kayi wa mutanen Aadawa da Samudawa
Alfatiya.

Amin, Dan-Barno.

[Dan-Borno]

This is the third time i am commending the effort of this
constituted members of our Senators.

This time around, the Senators are querrying whoever is
in charge (executive) over a contract amounting to the
tune of N23 billion for the construction of additional offices,
a library and conference rooms for the National Assembly.

Among questions raised by my able Senators are that the
contract was approved only 4 days to handing over by the
then President.

they also noted that the contract was tagged "an addendum"
to a previous contract which was entered in 2004 and the
recent one was never covered under the 2007 Appropriation
Act.

My confidence in the activities of these distinguished men of
honour is rising on daily basis, i pray they continue this way.

[Muhsin]

Reps reject Yar'Adua's Bakassi memo

From John Abba Ogbodo, Abuja
Guardian Newspaper

THE House of Representatives yesterday rejected a letter written to the chamber by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua on the agreement between Nigeria and Cameroun over the handing-over of oil rich Bakassi Peninsula.

Indications have also emerged that the last may not have been heard on the way the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) was managed over the last eight years, as the House Committee on Petroleum yesterday declared that the agency operated illegally in the last four years.

At the plenary session of the House yesterday, the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, mentioned the memo as the first business of the day and reminded members that following the intervention of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, Nigeria and Cameroun had entered into an agreement on the modalities for the transfer of the territory to Cameroun.

The title read: "A Bill for an Act to enable the Federal Government of Nigeria to give effect to the agreement between the Republic of Cameroun and the Federal Government of Nigeria concerning the modalities of withdrawal and transfer of authority in the Bakassi Peninsula and for purposes concerned therewith."

After the introduction of the issue by the Speaker, the chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enag, said the committee had met and taken a position that the House should not treat the matter based on the memo of the President, but that it should be presented as a bill with all the features required. He stressed that the Attorney General of the Federation should draft it as a bill for the President to forward same to the National Assembly.

Femi Gbajabiamila from Lagos, citing Order 12, Rule 1(3), said the issue was beyond a mere agreement that could just be ratified. He said the financial implication of the exercise should be incorporated as required by the rules of the House.

The Speaker then reminded members that the matter should be given all the seriousness it deserved. He urged members to move a motion properly so that they could ask the Executive to do the right thing by sending a bill to the National Assembly in respect of the Bakassi issue.

The House consequently resolved that the President should forward a formal bill on the matter.

President Yar'Adua, on December 7, 2007 wrote to the National Assembly telling them; "You may kindly note that having subscribed to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, Nigeria became duty bound to respect its judgment of 10th October, 2002 which confers the sovereignty of Cameroun over the Bakassi Peninsula."

Meanwhile, at an interactive session with the officials of PTDF yesterday in the National Assembly, chairman of the Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), Tam Brisbe, expressed the dissatisfaction of the House with the way and manner the fund had been managed in the last four years.

Leading other members of the committee, Brisbe asked the Executive Secretary of the fund, Alhaji Kabir Mohammed, to explain to the committee how the PTDF was run in the last four years without recourse to the National Assembly.

The Executive Secretary said the agency relied on the Act, which established the fund in terms of income and expenditure. He explained further that it was the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) that provided their finances, adding that the budget of the organisation was usually approved by the President who was also the Minister of Petroleum.

Mohammed also told the committee that the DPR usually maintained an account tagged "Reserved Account" for the agency, which he but noted has no knowledge of how the accounts had been managed since it was not a signatory to the account.

He tried to justify expenditure by the PTDF without recourse to the National Assembly, saying that even in the Constitution, PTDF was not among the agencies of government mentioned in the Fifth Schedule to seek approval from the National Assembly before embarking on expenditure.

However, the committee cited Section 80 of the 1999 Constitution which states that all expenditure must be approved by the National Assembly.

At this point, the committee said that every expenditure made by the PTDF in the last eight years constituted an illegality, "because we have not approved any money. We are not convinced that expenditure is being done properly."

The committee, therefore, asked Mohammed to submit the nominal roll of the agency as well as the details of how the place was run in the last four years to the House. Other documents to be submitted to the committee are the 2006, 2007 and 2008 budgets of the organisation.

Also, yesterday, a bill seeking an amendment to Federal Character Commission Act passed the second reading.

Introducing the bill, the sponsor, Bassey Etim from Akwa Ibom, said the amendment became necessary because of some inadequacies in the extant law.

He disclosed that there are some government agencies where more than half of the staff could be traced to a particular local government.

He argued that since there were no effective monitoring and sanction mechanisms, the issue of federal character representation in appointments and employment, which was intended to strengthen the unity of the country, was still being treated with levity.

Etim submitted that the tribunal which the amendment sought to establish would give bite to the law. The bill was forwarded to proceed to the committee stage.