L
LequteMan
Guest
Here are the words of Hon. Abdulmumin Jibin, the former chairman of the budget appropriation committee at the House of Representatives.
He was speaking in an interview published by Punch. The question was, at what points do corruption creep into Nigeria's budget process?
Here's his answer (quite an interesting read, actually):
Two points: One is at the standing committee level. What usually happens is – like in the case of the 2016 Budget – the Speaker connived with some committee chairmen. These chairmen were about 10. We have 96 committees. We are not accusing 86 standing committees. We are talking about 10 committees. Usually, the budget fraud is perpetuated by a few strategic committees. What the Speaker usually does is to have a (private) discussion with them in a bid to insert some items in the committees’ reports. That is done behind the back of members of the committees. That normally happens on the last day the standing committees meet to discuss the budget. Somewhere along the line, when the secretariat of the standing committees finishes the report and forwards it to the appropriation committee chairman, the speaker and some principal officers will sit down with the chairmen of the standing committees to insert some items into the budget. More often than not, these insertions are fraudulent.
I should say, however, that some insertions can be legal. When they make these illegal insertions, they take it to the appropriation committee. At the appropriation committee level, the chairman will decide whether or not to tolerate these illegal insertions while discussing with the principal officers. In my own case, I pointed out that the insertions were too much. That was the beginning of my problem. To make matters worse, apart from the fact that they (the insertions) were too much – there were over 2,000 insertions which amounted to about N284bn – the insertions were essentially fraudulent. I told the Speaker, ‘Look, you can’t go to the public with this budget.’ But, did I have a choice? I was the appropriation committee chairman. Anything that happened, they would tell me to speak to the media. So, Nigerians were asking me questions that I could not answer. They said, ‘But you defended this budget.’ I said, ‘Yes, I did.’ It is because I was made to defend it. How many times do you defend things that you do not believe in, in government? I defended it in my usual passionate way – just like I am using all my energy now to expose them. That is the first stage where the budget gets messed up. If the appropriation committee chairman is compromised, everything goes on quietly. But because I refused to compromise, there was a fight. The Speaker, along with Leo Ogor, Yusuf Lasun and Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, fought against me.
The second phase is the period when the appropriation committee puts the report together and then takes it to the Clerk of the National Assembly. At that point, the Speaker took the appropriation committee chairman’s secretariat away from me twice. That had never happened in the history of the parliament. Why are people not asking questions about why he took the secretariat away from me? By the time the budget came back, I didn’t know what to say and we continued to fight. They hurriedly said they had fired me. I had told them earlier that I didn’t want to be the committee chairman any longer. They suspected that if I stepped down as the chairman, I would expose them. For days, I spoke with the Speaker about my intention to leave that office. There was nothing they didn’t do on earth to keep me within that system. They said, ‘Okay, if you go, you are not supposed to talk.’ I told them I would not talk. Then, they asked me, ‘Which committee do you want?’ I replied that I didn’t want any. I told the Speaker, ‘If you don’t announce it today, I am going.’ He got scared. He requested to have a meeting with me at 10 pm. I went (back) to my office and (and the next thing I heard was) an announcement that I had been fired as the appropriation committee chairman.
The House of Representatives is trying to blackmail the country by saying we have powers of appropriation. I, Abdulmumin Jibrin, believe that the power of appropriation resides in the National Assembly. It empowers the Assembly to add, reduce, expand and extend (items in the budget). The makers of the Nigerian constitution did not envisage that such power would be abused. There is no law that is meant to protect fraud. For example, the executive brings a proposal to construct a building for N1m – and everybody knows the building can’t cost more than that amount of money. It goes to the House, then to the chairman of the House committee in charge. The chairman then uses his power of appropriation to make it N4m. Will you tell me that is not an offence? Or, for example, the chairman knows that the project cannot cost less than N1m and he reduces it to N500,000; it is sabotage against the country. I want Nigerians to stop calling what had happened ‘padding.’ It is budget fraud. The rightful way of using the power of appropriation is, for example, in a local government, where there is need for an electrification project. The council has solar boreholes and irrigation schemes. Another solar borehole and an irrigation scheme are inserted into the budget, but what the area needs is electricity. The chairman and members of the committee realise that solar boreholes were provided for in the previous budget and the projects were executed with a proof. They can use the power of appropriation to take away the solar borehole project and bring in the rural electrification project. They have not committed an offence.
He was speaking in an interview published by Punch. The question was, at what points do corruption creep into Nigeria's budget process?
Here's his answer (quite an interesting read, actually):
Two points: One is at the standing committee level. What usually happens is – like in the case of the 2016 Budget – the Speaker connived with some committee chairmen. These chairmen were about 10. We have 96 committees. We are not accusing 86 standing committees. We are talking about 10 committees. Usually, the budget fraud is perpetuated by a few strategic committees. What the Speaker usually does is to have a (private) discussion with them in a bid to insert some items in the committees’ reports. That is done behind the back of members of the committees. That normally happens on the last day the standing committees meet to discuss the budget. Somewhere along the line, when the secretariat of the standing committees finishes the report and forwards it to the appropriation committee chairman, the speaker and some principal officers will sit down with the chairmen of the standing committees to insert some items into the budget. More often than not, these insertions are fraudulent.
I should say, however, that some insertions can be legal. When they make these illegal insertions, they take it to the appropriation committee. At the appropriation committee level, the chairman will decide whether or not to tolerate these illegal insertions while discussing with the principal officers. In my own case, I pointed out that the insertions were too much. That was the beginning of my problem. To make matters worse, apart from the fact that they (the insertions) were too much – there were over 2,000 insertions which amounted to about N284bn – the insertions were essentially fraudulent. I told the Speaker, ‘Look, you can’t go to the public with this budget.’ But, did I have a choice? I was the appropriation committee chairman. Anything that happened, they would tell me to speak to the media. So, Nigerians were asking me questions that I could not answer. They said, ‘But you defended this budget.’ I said, ‘Yes, I did.’ It is because I was made to defend it. How many times do you defend things that you do not believe in, in government? I defended it in my usual passionate way – just like I am using all my energy now to expose them. That is the first stage where the budget gets messed up. If the appropriation committee chairman is compromised, everything goes on quietly. But because I refused to compromise, there was a fight. The Speaker, along with Leo Ogor, Yusuf Lasun and Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, fought against me.
The second phase is the period when the appropriation committee puts the report together and then takes it to the Clerk of the National Assembly. At that point, the Speaker took the appropriation committee chairman’s secretariat away from me twice. That had never happened in the history of the parliament. Why are people not asking questions about why he took the secretariat away from me? By the time the budget came back, I didn’t know what to say and we continued to fight. They hurriedly said they had fired me. I had told them earlier that I didn’t want to be the committee chairman any longer. They suspected that if I stepped down as the chairman, I would expose them. For days, I spoke with the Speaker about my intention to leave that office. There was nothing they didn’t do on earth to keep me within that system. They said, ‘Okay, if you go, you are not supposed to talk.’ I told them I would not talk. Then, they asked me, ‘Which committee do you want?’ I replied that I didn’t want any. I told the Speaker, ‘If you don’t announce it today, I am going.’ He got scared. He requested to have a meeting with me at 10 pm. I went (back) to my office and (and the next thing I heard was) an announcement that I had been fired as the appropriation committee chairman.
The House of Representatives is trying to blackmail the country by saying we have powers of appropriation. I, Abdulmumin Jibrin, believe that the power of appropriation resides in the National Assembly. It empowers the Assembly to add, reduce, expand and extend (items in the budget). The makers of the Nigerian constitution did not envisage that such power would be abused. There is no law that is meant to protect fraud. For example, the executive brings a proposal to construct a building for N1m – and everybody knows the building can’t cost more than that amount of money. It goes to the House, then to the chairman of the House committee in charge. The chairman then uses his power of appropriation to make it N4m. Will you tell me that is not an offence? Or, for example, the chairman knows that the project cannot cost less than N1m and he reduces it to N500,000; it is sabotage against the country. I want Nigerians to stop calling what had happened ‘padding.’ It is budget fraud. The rightful way of using the power of appropriation is, for example, in a local government, where there is need for an electrification project. The council has solar boreholes and irrigation schemes. Another solar borehole and an irrigation scheme are inserted into the budget, but what the area needs is electricity. The chairman and members of the committee realise that solar boreholes were provided for in the previous budget and the projects were executed with a proof. They can use the power of appropriation to take away the solar borehole project and bring in the rural electrification project. They have not committed an offence.
