Interview: What will Buhari do with over N80billion burgetary allocation for Aso Villa?

Tajudeen Yusuf, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and Institutions, in this live interview monitored by our correspondent, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari series of questions, especially on the over N18billion allocated for the Aso Villa in the 2016 Budget.

Excerpts:

What do you think of the figure concerning the amount for the vehicles the members of the National Assembly want to buy?

The National Assembly, unfortunately, is a tier of government that suffers a lot because, by my estimation, Nigerians are not yet conversant with the role of National Assembly. We are used to having the judiciary and the executive. I agree totally that we should all be prudent, but it is not possible for the National Assembly not to buy cars. But the type of cars matters. At this time when we are talking of economic crunch, we must not buy cars that are seen as too exotic. In the seventh Assembly at the House of Representatives, that was what we did; we bought Camry rather than SUVs. Nigerians should also look at this; we have 774 local government areas in Nigeria and if you calculate the amount to buy cars for chairmen of the local governments, you would see how huge the amount is. However, I agree that we must scale down.
It has become a recurrent issue but do you think the National Assembly has been able to cut down on wastage here?

Unfortunately, the challenge with democracy is that it is expensive. The moment you elect new members who have responsibility of carrying out certain functions, you must provide vehicles. I am very sure that the leadership of the National Assembly will understand that this is not the best time to buy cars that would massage anybody’s ego. They should be utility cars that would not be owned by members. They should be National Assembly-owned cars.

Are the cars for personal use or for oversight? We sometimes see committee members in buses…

The buses are not that enough… don’t forget that in the order of protocol, the National Assembly official is ahead of the minister. What I am saying is that I agree with scaling down, but is it possible to get an elected officer at the level of the National Assembly without providing vehicles for them? That is the unfortunate thing about democracy; it is expensive. I just gave you example of the local government chairmen, most of them drive in Prado. We must sit down and prune this thing, but you must provide vehicles.

Where is the money accruing from the sale of vehicles to outgoing members of the National Assembly lodged?

It goes into the federation account. The law stipulates clearly that all monies are domiciled in the federation account. As at when those vehicles were sold, the money went straight into the federation account. The National Assembly does not retain those monies and now add to it to buy new ones.

Some agencies in the last administration patronised made-in-Nigeria cars. Why is the eighth National Assembly not patronising made-in-Nigeria cars?

I cannot speak for the entire eighth Assembly. I know that the House of Representatives would sit down and look at the type of cars. I know it is going to be a general House decision to look at the type of cars and seek opinions of experts. In the seventh Assembly, I had the privilege of being a member of the House Services Committee and they proposed that we were coming with Prados, but in line with our decision to make sure that we scaled down and make Nigerians understand that we are in tune with the challenges, members proposed Camry, believing that Toyota cars are more pliable to Nigerian situations, roads and weather. For the eighth Assembly, I am not aware, all I see and hear are from the news. As at now, we have not sat down to take such decision.

Is it that the National Assembly does not really scrutinise its budget?

The National Assembly budget is unfortunately being misconstrued to mean just for members of the National Assembly. You have the bureaucrats. The National Assembly budget goes through the Committee of House Services in both chambers.

Have you started going through the 2016 budget?

Yes, I am going through it and I am sure members are going through it. When we resume on January 12, that would be the major burning issue on our table.

So what key items would you be looking for?

One thing that interests me… I once spoke with the deputy chairman of the Committee on ICT in the seventh Assembly concerning the procurement of ICT equipment in all MDAs. We came up with a proposal then that appealed to the National Executive Committee to harmonise ICT budget. It should be housed under the Ministry of ICT so that we don’t have items duplicated, we don’t have pockets of every MDAs creating its own ICT centre. For example, you find N450 million for computers in MD ‘a’, you find another N300 million for computers in MD ‘b’, then you move in to procurement of ICT materials; these are things that the details are not given. We had a lot of work on it in the seventh Assembly and I’m raising the attention of the ICT Committee already. I’m bringing to the consciousness that we must deal with it once and for all. These are areas of leakage. The Federal Government has an agency called Galaxy Backbone which has the capacity to wear out some of these things. So why do you create an agency that has capacity that’s not being used and you create duplication all over? In exercising our power over the appropriation, Section 80 and 81 are clear that the National Assembly will appropriate in a manner it deems fit.

Do you in the PDP and your colleagues in the APC agree with the budget allocated to Aso Rock?

We must come to terms with this reality. In democracy everywhere, after elections, party variations dissolve and that is why in 2012, we had the unfortunate responsibility of coming up with a motion against the removal of subsidy at the time it was done, believing that the manner in which it was done was not right. I am PDP. So if we find any item that is not in consonance with the desire of the Nigerian people, does not promote the change mantra that Nigerians genuinely desire and which we must give them, (we will raise concern). I have seen some of the items there, I don’t see any reason why party affiliation would stop us from doing what is just and fair. Remember in 2012 when the then President made a budget of about N900 million for feeding in Aso Rock, there was outcry and it was scaled down to about N700 million. From then onward, it began to drop. Last year, it was a little above N400 million. It means that we are conscious of the need to scale down our budgetary allocation to certain areas of government. So, the Villa budget as it is, we need to ask a lot of questions from the Permanent Secretary or whoever is involved. Are we building a new Villa with the capital allocation to the Villa?

How much sacrifice are you willing to make if Nigerians want you to forget about the cars because we are broke?

Definitely, if Nigerians are saying: “do away with the cars”, I am very sure there would be alternatives. Nigerians would not just say the National Assembly members should go ahead and do their work without means of moving from one place to the other. I am aware that there are a lot of other areas of sacrifice; the car is just one. Training is very, very key, but if you observe, since the eighth Assembly came on board, all trainings have been done locally. You know the cost of traveling for trainings abroad. In as much as we understand that we need these expertise abroad, there is this plan by the leadership to try and bring in this expertise into the country so as to reduce cost in that area. If you look at the national Assembly budget for the past seven to eight years, it has been consistent at one level. Last year, it dropped to N130 billion and we have proposed that this year, it will drop to N115 billion. By implication, the National Assembly is trying every year to show that it is leading by example. I don’t, in anyway, deceive myself that I can on my own bring in the desired change, but in my show of interest, I can bring in the change that is desired. That is why I influence everything that I can influence to my constituency to bring dividends to my people. So I urge my colleagues to understand that Nigeria is in a triumvirate and what is expected of us as leaders is to genuinely sacrifice and I am sure the leadership understand that.

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