2019: Senators blame executive for poor oversight activities
Senate President;Ahmed Lawan
Senators have blamed the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for their inability to carry out appropriate oversight activities on federal agencies in the current fiscal year.
They said the non release of money to fund capital expenditure component of the 2019 budget actually incapacitated that critical aspect of their legislative duties.
The lawmakers lamented that it was impossible for them to hold the ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government accountable since they had no money to execute capital projects.
They also lamented that the development affected their constituency projects as well because none had been executed by any MDA due to non release of funds.
Speaking on the issue, the Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate, Emmanuel Bwacha, said there was no way the lawmakers could assess the performance of the 2019 budget since the capital expenditure component was not funded.
He said, “The performance of the MDAs in terms of the projects executed by them would have informed what we would approve for them in the 2020 budget but unfortunately, we can’t determine that now.
“We would have been able to carry out critical scrutiny of their proposal for 2020 if we had had cause to carry out oversight activities on the projects executed by them this year.”
“This is a worrisome development in our budget system. We do not take budgeting as a serious business.
The Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, said the oversight functions of the parliament remained the weapon to hold the executive accountable.
He said, “We are supposed to do our oversight in order to ensure that transparency in revenue collection and revenue generation are getting into the federal treasury.
“This can only happen if the institutions that are supposed to do their work are doing it well.”
He explained that the situation must change in the 2020 fiscal year
However, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said the 2019 budget was not being fully implemented because it was passed and signed into law towards the end of the 8th National Assembly.
