You have shown so much passion for constituency projects, that you are even sponsoring a bill on that. Would you throw more light on the concept of constituency projects and funding as you propose?
Thank you very much. One of the unique features of our democratic journey so far is the concept of constituency projects. Available statistics show that 70 per cent of Nigerians live in the rural areas and the intention of the bill is to ensure that good governance is delivered to these crucial areas.
The bill is also intended to correct the top-bottom approach of governance and replace it with the bottom-top approach. Constituency project in recent times, is one of the ways to attract federal presence to our people.
If not for these projects, majority of federal constituencies would not have a single federal project due to lopsided nature of project allocation in the budget. The constituency project is not peculiar to Nigeria. There are similar mechanisms in other developing countries.
For instance the constituency development fund has been institutionalized in Kenya, Uganda, India and Tanzania. Instead of vilifying the National Assembly on the constituency project, people should advocate for an institutional framework for the implementation of the constituency projects as it is the case in Kenya.
This Bill therefore, is an attempt at providing both institutional and legislative frame work for the operation of constituency projects in Nigeria, thereby making it part of our National Budget.
While it is true that local government council has the responsibility of the development of local communities, the Federal Government has the overall responsibility of providing federal presence in these areas through developmental projects and there is no way this can be achieved without the input of the parliamentarians who are the representatives of the people at the federal level.
By so doing, the parliamentarian who knows the needs of the people will articulate them in the form of projects for injection into the budget in the form of constituency projects. The most interesting thing about this Constituency Projects Bill includes: that projects under this Act when passed shall be community based in order to ensure that the prospective benefits are available to a widespread cross-section of the inhabitants of a particular area.
Two, any funding under this Act shall be for a complete project or a defined phase of a project and may include the acquisition of land and buildings.
Also, all projects shall be projects as defined under this Act when passed and may include costs related to feasibility studies, planning and design or other technical input for the project but shall not include recurrent costs of a facility. In addition to this, projects may include the acquisition of vehicles, machinery and other equipment for the constituency.
Most legislators around the world angle for such projects such that they can appeal to the voters in their constituents since they seek votes just as the executive does. In most democracies, it is a process used to obtain funding from a central government to finance projects benefiting the legislators local constituents.
It is also known as earmarking, pork barrel in the USA. When this bill becomes law, the Constituency Projects shall constitute 20 per cent of the Annual Budget by ensuring that certain portion of the nation’s annual budget is set aside for rural development.
If I may make further comment on the bill, I will say that the Constituency Projects Bill is self explanatory because it is about a subject matter we are all very familiar with. It is essentially talking about development of our rural communities; ensuring that the platform with which to develop our rural communities is made transparent, and that the ambiguity is completely removed out of it.
In other words, how do we institutionalize it, how do we legalise it, how do we make it entitlement of our rural dwellers, to prove to them that they are indeed part of the nation and that their rural communities will be developed. So, the planning comes into it. Who is then in a better position to know the peculiarities and the needs of the rural dwellers? It is we that represent them.
That is why you have the parliamentarians because they live with them and are here to represent them. And it is their responsibility to bring to the front burner the issue of their various community developments. That is what the bill seeks to address.
Since the idea of constituency projects came on stream, it has always been provided for in the budget. Why are you now trying to make it a law?
Let me also say that the issue of constituency projects is self-explanatory because all of us come from rural areas. So, we have different community development issues. There are issues my community will have that yours may not have and vice versa.
But what is important is to have holistic national development; and so rural development must be addressed. And for the rural development to be addressed, the representatives of the Nigerian people will have to speak through the budget. We have to address these inadequacies through the budget.
That is the essence of the bill; that is why I feel that it is important to give it a legal backing so that it will no longer be within anybody’s discretional powers to allocate funds to the projects or not because it will now be a matter of law which must be followed.
There is this controversy that has always been there that the members of the National Assembly turn themselves to contractors, collect money for the constituency projects and use it for themselves as they like. What is your take on this?
That is not true and that is what the bill is trying to address. The legislative body does not award contracts to start with; they do not execute contracts. They will identify the projects, where the projects will be domiciled because it up is their community and they represent this community. Who executes and how it is executed is not their business and they don’t know anything about it. There is a procurement process that award of contracts usually follow.
Their own is to ensure that the project is done as it ought to be done. That is where supervision of the project comes in. For instance, if you are giving my community water and I say that it should be in Ogbijor in Anambra State, for instance, and you take it to Obolo and Obolo doesn’t need it, I should correct you and say this is not where it should be, it should rather be here.
That is my responsibility. It is also my responsibility as a representative to tell you that the infant mortality rate in Obi is too high, and therefore, their priority will be primary health care centre as opposed to the stadium you probably want to give to them.
It is your responsibility. And so, to avoid the ambiguity, the misinterpretation as you have highlighted, to bring in transparency to ensure that things are done as they ought to be done, we must develop this framework. And this frame-work also showcases for those who made it possible for us both the legislators and the executive to come to power, get the dividends of their votes by ensuring that their lives are transformed; that a difference is made in their lives.
What about the issue legislators going to collect the projects for execution themselves?
I tell you, no legislator, no senator’ no House of Representative member will go to executive office and say give me the money for the borehole made for my community because we don’t want it; I just put it there because I want to collect the money.
There is no sense in that and it doesn’t work, and I don’t see it working. Constituency project is not about collection of money and the legislators don’t have access to that money. What they do and what they have is to ensure that the peculiarity of their community development problem is brought to the front burner and addressed.
That is his concern and that is what the constituency project is all about. And don’t forget, these constituencies are in this Nigeria, under the Federal Government of Nigeria. They are not in Niger.
Over time, the issue of constituency projects have generated a lot of dust and the reputation of the National Assembly has been brought to serious question. In light of this, don’t you think that it is unnecessary to make it a law as you are proposing?
I think that is a very good question. Again, your question is part of the essence of this bill, to ensure that the misconception, the ambiguity, the accusation is all out of the way. And the problems of the Nigerian people who are the constituents are properly addressed.
When we say constituencies and constituents, it appears too far away. Am sure you come from a village and probably when you pronounce the name of your village it will be difficult for me to pronounce it, and when you tell me the peculiarities of your developmental issues, I will probably will not comprehend it but your Rep understands it.
The person representing you understands it because he or she lives with you, and you ask the person through your voting to come to the federal legislative arm of government to represent you; not only to legislate but to ensure that your issues are adequately addressed, that your challenges are properly addressed.
And so, in doing that it comes under his constituency projects. The only way we can remove all these ambiguities, the only way we can introduce transparency is to make it legal. And that is the global best practice. In the United States, it is called Pub Barrel. It says that the dividends of democracy must come back to us that have sent you to represent us in whichever form and it must come in concrete forms where our challenges are properly addressed.
If it is water, health, road, agriculture or whatever it is, our lives should not be as it were before you were voted into power; you must give us a better life, otherwise we warn you that you will not come back again.
But let’s take it back, who are these people and who are the constituents that we are talking about? These are Nigerians that happen to live rural communities. How do you make a budget?
A budget is made by Ministry of Planning. It is impossible for Udo Udoma or Shagari to know that I have a village that is called Akili; you probably won’t spell it properly or pronounce it properly. And in this village, children walk ten kilometres before they can access school, and that for a woman to have access to clean water, she has to trek for about 20 kilometres. You won’t know all that but I know all that because I went there to campaign, because I go there to visit them, because I represent them.
Therefore, these challenges for me are priorities. How will the Federal Government address these challenges if it is not in the budget?
It will not be Federal Government priority, not for not knowing but it is my responsibility to bring it to the front burner to say that my people need this; this community you cannot even access it by road, and you need to park your vehicle and look for a canoe to go for thirty minutes to one hour.
What this community requires is a simple bridge that will probably cost less than ten million. When you do that, those people’s farm produce can come to markets and their lives will be better.
That is what constituency project is all about. It is about how our rural communities will benefit from federal planning, from federal budget or federal dividend.
But we want to put it in a legitimate manner so that tomorrow you will not say that Stella took ten million to go and do road and that road does not exist. It will be in black and white; even your community people will see it on the budget that this is what is supposed to come to them.
And when they don’t get it, they know where to go to; they hold you responsible, and they will ask you to make sure that Federal Government executes. In fact, there is no corruption; indeed it deletes corruption from the process.
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