Outgoing National Assembly leaders likely to face probe over constituency project funding

OUTGOING leaders of the National Assembly are reported to be seeking guarantees from those wishing to take over from them that they will not probe the allocation and expenditure of constituency project funding as it could open a can of worms.

Under a bizarre arrangement, senators and members of the House of Representatives are given huge sums of money by the National Assembly to carry out projects in their constituencies, independent of the state government. Approved by the senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives, this money is used for mini projects like school refurbishment, the sinking of boreholes and road rehabilitation.

However,  very little of this money gets to its intended sources and it is believed that following the election of a new National Assembly leadership on June 10, the outgoing leaders may be probed on the matter. Senate president Senator Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives speaker Hon Yakubu Dogara are said to be lobbying for the incoming leaders to allow the matter go.

Their main headache appears to be Senator Ahmed Lawan, the current senate majority leader who has been adopted as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for senate president. A close ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, it is believed that if he wins the senate presidency, Senator Lawan will open the files on the matter and possibly send the findings to anti-graft agencies.

Already, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has vowed to make the two chambers of the National Assembly account for funds allocated to constituency projects and the figures are scary. Out of the 2,516 projects tracked between 2015 and 2017, some 918 of them were not done, 395 are ongoing while 214 of the projects cannot even be located.

In 2015, 436 projects tracked in 16 states, of which 145 were completed, 77 are ongoing and 211 were not executed at all. In 2016, of the 852 projects in 20 states, 350 were completed, 118 are ongoing, 41 locations not specified in the budget and 343 were not done at all.

Then, in 2017, of the 1,228 projects tracked as of at June 2018, 478 were completed, 173 were  in unspecified locations, 200 are ongoing, 13 were abandoned and 364 were not started. It is now feared that if Senator Lawan wins, he will examine all this expenditure.

As a result, it is rumoured that several National Assembly leaders in the two chambers are in desperate need of a candidate that will cover their tracks. They are said to be lobbying people who have influence on both the presidential villa and Senator Lawan, promising that once they are assured of their own safety, both Senator Lawan and Hon Femi Gbajabiamila will have their ways as senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives respectively.