Vanguard Accountability Crusades on September 09, 2013 / in Editorial 4:00 am EVERYONE talks about accountability, demands it, makes an issue of its importance to governance, but it must be noted that those who are being called to account, are the least interested in the matter. It is an endless tango. Former Education Minister, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili has become a frequent caller for accountability of national resources. She finds every platform an opportunity to carry on the crusade which could benefit the public. At the moment she concentrates on the budget of the National Assembly, which at N150 billion in 2013, is about three per cent of the federal budget. Her argument is that the money should be put into better use by either making the legislature part time, or have one chamber instead of the Senate and House of Representatives. We require a more stringent approach to managing costs of governance. There is no proof that a single chamber for the legislature would be less expensive than the current practice. To address cost of governance, a holistic approach that eliminates the wastes in government should be used. Wastes are not limited to a particular arm of government. Mrs Ezekwesili riles the National Assembly which came under public umbrage again with the publications over salaries of its members. The drawback expenditures of the legislature impose on the economy appears in other forms like its oversight functions. The consequences of the type of oversight the National Assembly conducts are not obvious and costs of the interruptions to the economy could be more than N150 billion. It must be added that the work of the National Assembly cannot be comprehensively evaluated in terms of the immediate gains for Nigerians, but laws that serve public interests readily translate to general improvements of the peoples’ condition. How much should we pay for that? Where people tend to disagree with Mrs Ezekwesili, and not necessarily side with the National Assembly, is that she discusses the matter as if she was not once involved in a government that shunned accountability and laid the foundations for the stupendous allowances and appurtenances of office members of the National Assembly gladly claim. The many commissions and agencies that have been created in the past 14 years have kept escalating the cost of governance. Many agencies simply duplicate functions of existing ones. Governments expend lots of resources funding these agencies and resolving the endless conflicts in their operations. High cost of governance is more profound than is obvious. It permeates regimes, it clogs implementation of projects. Its critics have failed to state clear solutions to the challenge. The issue is too critical to the future of Nigeria that it cannot be relegated to blame shifting and blame sharing.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 07:50:40 +0000
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