Senate’s new approach to oversight function

David Mark

Members of the Senate seem to have realised that strengthening Senate committee’s oversight functions is a potent means of making government ministries, departments and parastatal agencies responsive to their duties. This is exemplified by a new growing philosophy on this legislative function in the Senate, writes Taiwo Adisa.

When the Senate said last year that it would henceforth embark on “radical oversight functions” in carrying out its watchdog responsibilities on ministries, departments and executive bodies, no one knew the details of that radicalism. But the inventor of the phrase, Senator Smart Adeyemi, would later define it in an interview as an oversight function that is backed with the force of intellectualism within the framework of constitutionalism and all efforts targeted at development.

“I came up with this slogan ‘radical approach’ to solving national problems. Over the years, we have been confronting challenges and problems for our nation from a very docile and lukewarm approach. “You cannot sit down in Abuja or in your offices and say you are legislating when you don’t know what is happening to the people. Every solution now requires a radical approach because in the last 45 years, things have not really changed. So, we must take a step that is unusual; a step that is quite challenging; a step that is backed up with intellectualism and force behind it. That is the essence of the radical approach.

“We have not really achieved set national goals over the years and I feel we need a different approach from now on. If you take a look at the Senate right now, you will see that there is a new approach to the way and manner national problems are being addressed and I think it is good for the nation. “I think using radical approach in solving our problems will move the country forward. When we talk of radical approach, we are equally talking of an approach within the framework of the constitution and I think that it is yielding fruits already,” he said.

Looking at the Senate in recent times, it would be easy to conclude that the radical approach is taking roots. The process of passing the 2008 budget has provided ample evidence for that. The face of the budget, which should have been passed in December 2007, has been completely reworked beyond the expectations of the executive on account of the myriad of questions and revelations the legislators have come up with. There is the question of the secret accounts which has yielded over N300 billion to the nation’s coffers.

There is also the insistence on revenue profile as the basis of passing the budget and the insistence on a new crude oil benchmark in view of the realities in the international market. The exponents of that new found radicalism may be just a handful in the Senate, but then, the institution is the better for it. Senator Adeyemi again set out on January 18 to consolidate the idea he co-founded with the leadership of the Senate when the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs embarked on oversight functions to the headquarters and operational sites of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

On the oversight tour were Senator Adeyemi; the committee’s chairman, Senators Ayogu Eze; Senators Muji Taba, George Sekibo and Kamorudeen Adedibu as well as the technocrats in the committee. The committee’s first port of call was the headquarters of NEMA, where the Director General, Air Vice Marshall Mohammed Audu-Bida, received the team and laid bare the many travails of the agency.

Air Vice Marshall Audu-Bida said his agency had recorded a number of achievements, but that it had been hampered in its operations, especially in 2007, when the disagreement between the former president and his deputy robbed the agency of its entire statutory allocation of N4.7 billion.

“We did a lot of intervention that year, but we did not get a kobo from the allocations. When we wrote to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, he gave directives to the Ministry of Finance and nothing came out. Because of the problem between the former president and his deputy, we could not report to the vice president, but we did to the president and NEMA board was dissolved,” he said.

He gave a breakdown of the outstanding allocations as including the sum of N4.7 billion to NEMA in 2007 and an outstanding allocation of N1 billion from the 2003 statutory allocations. While the agency was supposed to be paid N3.7 billion in 2003, it got N2.7 billion. It also got N2.4 billion in 2004, instead of N3.6 billion.

Audu-Bida said the agency received N2.6 billion in 2005, instead of N3.6 billion, got N3.5 billion in 2006, instead of N4.8 billion and got zero allocation in 2007. The senators were incensed that such an agency as NEMA, operating in the sensitive area, was so treated by the government. “It is an act of corruption, illegality and misappropriation for the presidency to withhold allocations due to NEMA for the whole of 2007 and parts of the agency’s allocations from 2003 to date; we are recommending that the outstanding funds be released,” Senator Adeyemi said.

He asked the agency’s director general to immediately write to inform the committee of its needs so that it would take necessary actions to put the agency in shape. “What we want you to do is to put pen to paper and tell us what you intend to do to put in place equipment. We will do our own part by reaching out to the executive to release the statutory allocations. “It is unacceptable that you will have only one helicopter and it is also not acceptable that the helicopter is not under your direct control. Whoever might have done that did not do it in good faith. I want a situation where you have six helicopters, one per geo-political zone. This country is big and we live with disasters everyday,” he said.

The committee thereafter embarked on a tour of the offices and the operational site at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. It was apparent that the senators were not comfortable with what they saw during the NEMA tour. The helicopter at the airport was in bad shape and the attempt to do a test run of the aircraft was aborted when the senators were told that its air-conditioning system was faulty. The hanger at the airport was also empty and NEMA officials were to explain that other helicopters could not be acquired because of some technical problems.

On the strength of that discovery, it was gathered that the Senate committee had forwarded a letter to the presidency, asking for a refund of the agency’s seized funds. At the end of the tour, Senator Adeyemi told journalists that the discoveries by his committee during the NEMA tour were an eye opener.

He summarised the discoveries thus: “The committee found out that NEMA had only one helicopter and the control of that helicopter is rested in the presidency and this is not acceptable. “Throughout 2007, no single kobo was released to NEMA from its statutory allocations due to the crisis between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, despite the level of disasters in the year. Whoever made that suggestion during the last administration had ulterior motives.

“Nigeria is surrounded by lots of risks such that we have to be proactive. The executive is being asked to release the statutory allocations of NEMA, running to about N10 billion, that were not released over the years and especially the N4.7 billion due to it as statutory allocation in 2007. “The committee is also demanding the provision of one helicopter per geo-political zone and two in Abuja.

“We are suggesting that NEMA should have one helicopter per geo-political zone and two in Abuja to tackle emergency situations. If that had been the situation during the plane crash in Abuja Airport in 2005, the casualty rate might have been reduced. “It is not proper that the helicopter should be under the watch of the president and we suspect that there is more to the transfer of the helicopter to the Presidency Air Fleet (PAF).”

It was also gathered that the committee has, in its report, asked NEMA to expand the scope of its offices and manpower, if it must improve on its operations. “We should not wait for emergencies to occur before we put things in place. In this sophisticated and growing world, there are lots of modern equipment that NEMA must urgently acquire,” a report from the committee indicated. This assignment can be said to have set the tone for the new found philosophy of radicalism. The stand the committee took on its discoveries during the tour, if sustained, even in other areas that the Senate oversees, is capable of engendering desired changes in public service.