Non-effectiveness of preventive mechanisms, mismanagement of public funds and budget padding marred fight against corruption

The House of Representatives (HoR) in a revised Legislative Agenda set out to strengthen the fight against corruption as one of its immediate-term interventions to improve governance in the country. To achieve this the house of representatives promised to enhance preventive mechanisms to block leakages.

Through the legislative agenda, the HoR had promised to achieve this before the end of May 2021.

“For us in this House of Representatives, we have committed to, and we will work to implement the policy objectives we have set out in the agenda,” said Hon. (Prof) Julius Ihonvbere, OON, Chairman, AdHoc Committee on Review of the Legislative Agenda in his introductory speech available on the legislative agenda website.

Despite this commitment, the HoR has found it hard to block internal leakages and corrupt acts among its members. In March 2021, BudgIT, a Nigeria civic-tech organization raised alarm over the duplication of several projects and insertion of 6,576 capital projects in the 2022 budget. The organization also identified that some of the projects linked to the leadership of the National Assembly in the approved 2022 budget were assigned to MDAs who do not have any mandate to executive them.

Promise: Strengthened fight against corruption by enhancing preventive mechanisms to block leakages, deterrence, and enshrine probity in public fund management.

This is not the first time the HoR or the national assembly is finding itself in a nest of corruption allegations. In 2016, the Dogara-led HoR was also in the middle of corruption allegations over the padding of the country’s 2016 budget. Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, a former lawmaker and the former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation had written a petition to the country’s anti-graft agency, EFCC to report on the act of four (4) principals of the HoR.

During a presentation by Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Chairman, Mr Owasanoye in August 2021, the agency recovered 301 houses from two (2) public officers in the country. The agency had earlier complained about the spate of mismanagement of public funds among public officials in the country despite the launching of an Open Treasury Portal. These are stumbling blocks in the fight against corruption as the preventive mechanisms introduced are yet to be effective.

In the 2021 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, Nigeria dropped five more places to rank 154 among 180 countries in the world. Previously, the country was ranked 144th, 146th, and 149th in 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively.

We rate this promise, Broken.

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