Politics Ezekwesili Challenges Lawmakers to Public Debate on Cost of Governance

A

abujagirl

Guest
upload_2013-8-22_7-17-38.png

Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili,Former Minister of Education and immediate past Vice-President of the World Bank (Africa) has challenged the lawmakers to a public hearing to defend her claims that the National Assembly gulped approximately N1tn in the last eight years.

Ezekwesili’s presentation had been contested by members of the National Assembly, who also accused her of blackmail against the legislature.

“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”, she said.

“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”.

“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 added.
 
Back
Top