Constituency Projects : The Malady Within

By Sanusi Muhammad

Constituency projects are nominated by representatives either at the federal or state level for the primary benefit of those at the grassroots. It is also a means for citizens to feel the impact of governance in their respective communities.

These projects are implemented with tax payer monies. Nigerians have a right to know how their tax contributions are utilized. However, findings have shown that representatives at the national assembly have formed the criminal habit of labeling those funded projects as their personal donations to the constituency while the opposite remains the case.
Such fraudulent appellation, many have argued should not be allowed to continue since the funds for those projects are released by the Federal Government. The Federal Government spends N100billion yearly on constituency projects nominated by members of the national assembly and spread across the 774 local government areas.
Several greedy members of the national assembly are on the list of those who turn government sponsored projects to look like their personal contributions to the people while in most cases, some of the gluttonous members negotiate behind the scene with other interested parties to either relocate those their projects to other constituencies at an agreed amount or get it monetized.
It is common to hear or watch shameless lawmakers distributing motorcycles and Tokunbo vehicles to impoverished, selected members of their constituencies as their contribution to their welfare which in most cases, is a deceitful mechanism for appreciation as the vehicles and motorcycles were already paid for by the Federal Government as part of constituency project.
A visit to most constituencies to assess constituency projects would definitely get most national lawmakers either to jail or a refund of colossus sums earlier diverted for projects not executed.
The recent discovery of cases of malfeasance, diversion and corrupt practices associated with the execution, of constituency projects and the huge amount recovered in cash and assets from those who failed to carry out the purpose for which the funds were allocated and released, raged controversy between the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the House of Representatives members.
As part of a baseless defence mechanism to cover shame, enraged members of the House of Representatives were reported to have accused the ICPC of misleading and inciting the public against the national legislators by reportedly claiming that allocated N1trillion was made available for the various projects with no commensurate value added to the various constituencies, and that about N100billion was recovered in cash and assets by the commission in the course of probing the degree of execution of the various projects nationwide.
The House of Representatives, reports say, contended that even if about N1trillion was approved as budgetary allocation for the various captured projects, the actual cash releases overtime felt short of that allocated amount, and that the ICPC has a responsibility to make the actual amount released public for posterity. Furthermore, the lawmakers stated that the amount recovered by the commission as declared in its report was N660million in both cash and assets and not N100billion as claimed.
In the views of many, the disagreement was entirely out of the point but meant to divert attention from the subject. The critical issue is that there has been an ongoing gross abuse of process and outright fraud in the execution of constituency projects, which is why substantial amounts of public funds were recovered from defaulting contractors and their collaborators in the legislature by the ICPC. For instance, majority of members of the House of Representatives for greed and corrupt purposes, have registered companies that corner constituency projects instead of through the conventional system of award to qualified contractors. In such situations, most of those companies owned by the lawmakers end up either abandoning the projects, poor execution or not executed at all but duly paid the whole.
Even if the amount recovered by the ICPC was N660million as claimed by the House of Representatives members, pundits believe that such a level of waste and misuse of resources is unwarranted and indefensible. The implication is that if ICPC had not undertaken the probe, the huge amount recovered would have likely been lost and the projects not executed.
What readily comes to the fore again is the need to urgently review the concept of constituency projects with a view to either scrapping it entirely or at least drastically modifying the mode of its implementation. The lawmakers are elected primarily to make laws and perform oversight functions over the executive arm in performance not to initiate or execute contracts including constituency projects that was introduced primarily by former president Obasanjo for selfish interest against his then planned impeachment.
As it is, the large sums now allocated for constituency projects have become a ploy for unscrupulous national legislators in collaboration with unpatriotic and criminally-minded bureaucrats to fleece the public treasury through the award of frivolous contracts. One of such government agencies that serve as a drain-pipe of the lawmakers is the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).
True or not, most national legislators are engaged in the dishonest exploitation of constituency projects for criminal diversion of public funds to the detriment of their constituencies while few are innocent and operating on the right track. For instance, the federal legislator representing Wase federal constituency in Plateau State and now the deputy speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase and the former Speaker of the 8th House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and few others, can be exonerated from the scam by what they have provided their constituencies with since 2007. They should truly be appreciated because they have tried despite the odds and deserve commendation. In his unbelievable and unintelligent defence of the thieving lawmakers, spokesman of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, claimed that of the 373 projects visited by the ICPC so far, 255 were completed, 108 are ongoing while five are abandoned and only three were not started at all.
Agreed, if we are to believe his claim, how comes that as much as N660million in cash and property were recovered from the defaulting contractors? There is no point pretending that there is something fundamentally wrong with the current mechanism of executing constituency projects. Rather than creating separate budget heads for constituency projects that are nebulous and vulnerable to abuse, all projects across the country ought to be captured within the budgetary plans of the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and executed in accordance with stipulated processes that guarantee transparency, efficiency and accountability.
The current system is open to abuse as is so obvious and such avenue for avoidable leakages must be eliminated in the interest of accelerated economic recovery and development. However, it is not enough to recover cash and assets from errant contractors; they must be made to face the wrath of the law along with their criminally-minded legislators and those shameless bureaucrats.
Meanwhile, the ball is now in the court of Mr. President if he has the genuine interest of defeating corruption.