Most Revenue MDAs Don’t Remit Funds – Senate President
The Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan, has accused most revenue generating agencies for their alleged failure to remit funds to the treasury.
Lawan warned that the trend must change and hinted of plans by the National Assembly to investigate where such huge monies that belong to all Nigerians end up.
He stated this at the 3rd convocation and award ceremony of the University of Benin/National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (UNIBEN/NILDS) Postgraduate Programme in Abuja.
In his address, Lawan, who doubles as the chairman of the National Assembly, said that the legislature is the only arm of government that can intervene at any moment on critical and diverse issues relating to constitutional crisis.
He said: “This legislature is the most misunderstood. Our relationship with the executive is cordial and based on mutual respect. We will continue with the open NASS so that people that elect us will know what we are doing.”
Lawan said that the mood of the NASS oversight function would change because of the non-remittance of the revenues belonging to the federal government by the affected agencies.
The Senate president continued: “Our oversight function will change. We won’t have rancour with the executive. The relationship has been excellent. The target of 29th October to end budget defence remains. Every subcommittee must ensure that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) defend their budget.
“It’s not just about passing the budget and signing it. We will ensure that the budget passed is implemented. Nigeria gathered a lot of revenue but most of the revenue generating agencies do not remit the money,” Lawan declared.
He assured Nigerians that the Senate would find out why some establishments generate revenue but Nigerians don’t see the money, adding that “the National Assembly will look for where these revenues are. We will certainly look for wherever they are.”
Also, at the event, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, said that it was wrong for the Nigerian president to issue a proclamation dissolving the National Assembly.
Nnamani said that the country’s constitution did not envisage such, asserting that in the order of primacy, the legislative arm should be number one.
In June 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari issued a proclamation dissolving the 8th National Assembly and announced a new date for the inauguration of the 9th Assembly.
Buhari proclaimed that the first session of the 9th National Assembly would hold on Tuesday, 11th June, 2019 at 10am in the two chambers.
On the role of the legislature in national development, Nnamani said that “there can’t be development and good governance without laws enacted by lawmakers in a democracy. The legislature should be number one in order of primacy.” Nnamani, who gave the convocation lecture, said that former lawmakers do not visit the National Assembly because of their resolve not to interfere on the NASS activities, adding that “we always want people who are there to do their work.”
He urged the stakeholders to be happy with the progress made by NILDS in Africa, saying that that it had improved the quality of bills and motions being presented at the National Assembly.
“The legislature is an arm of government that should not be trivialised. The legislature is struggling to assert itself. Nigeria is not an exception. In the United States (US), the president and the Congress are at loggerheads over alleged infractions,” Nnamani said.
According to him, “in order of primacy the legislature is number one. You establish the legislature first. Good governance is not about only providing social amenities for the people but that it’s a complex mechanism and a process in which individuals exercise their rights.
“The way the legislature function will determine whether democracy will work or not,” Nnamani said, adding that “when a president says I dissolve the national Assembly, it’s not in the constitution. The people that make the laws are to find out what the executive are doing and not the order way round.”