FOR eight years, the National Assembly was famous for reported financial recklessness and bogged down by weighty financial scandals.
But the federal legislature seems to have reinvented itself, as it returned a princely unspent N7 billion to the national treasury last week.
Besides, the Assembly, noted for its Oliver Twist’s appetite for more money, did not bother to access another N4 billion capital expenditure for the 2007 fiscal year. Thus, the appropriated fund has lapsed, going by the new policy in government.
The Guardian gathered that when top treasury officers from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation closed the Assembly’s treasury account last week, they were surprised by the new-look legislature that had never returned a kobo to government coffers since 1999.
However, it was learnt that two related factors were responsible for the unprecedented fiscal discipline of the Assembly. They are the financial scandal that rocked the House of Representatives and led to the election of a new Speaker late last year and strict adherence to the new ‘due process’ law – the Public Procurement Act 2007.
The Public Procurement Bill, initiated by the Obasanjo administration as an executive Bill, was the last legislation the past session of the National Assembly passed before it was dissolved on June 3 last year.
Incidentally, the National Procurement Bill was the first the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua signed into law on June 4, 2007.
It was confirmed that the National Assembly completed the process of returning the unspent appropriated fund to the treasury last Thursday.
According to the details, the returned sum – N7,098,350,867.74 billion – was from the Recurrent Expenditure head.
By the same token, the National Assembly that got N2.5 billion through a supplementary appropriation in the year did not access its N4.4 billion worth of capital votes in the treasury.
Apart from the supplementary budget, there had been N1.9 billion in the same account. But the new national procurement law, championed by the Due Process office of the last administration, made it quite challenging to access.
The law, which spells strict guidelines and procedures for contract implementation, has been enhanced by the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, which the President signed into law last November.
It would be recalled that shortly after the President signed the Fiscal Responsibility Bill into law, he directed that any votes that could not be accessed by November 30, 2007 should be returned to the national treasury.
But The Guardian understood that some artful account officers have devised some ways and means of beating the treasury rules and presidential directives, in this connection.
However, the leadership of the National Assembly and the Management (bureaucracy) led by the Clerk, responsible for the spending of the returned fund, did not want to flout the treasury rules and the national procurement law.
As an officer in the treasury confided, “the federal legislature that is noted for profligacy and fiscal indiscipline has, in fact, given us cause to cheer – that there is hope for Nigeria’s democracy after all, by this singular act of returning a huge amount to the national treasury.
“This should be cheering news to the people of Nigeria. We hope we hear similar news about the Executive and the Judiciary, too. Recall that the Justice Uwais-led Supreme Court had in 2005 returned N5 billion to the national treasury.”
The Fiscal Responsibility Act, proposed by the former Finance Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is binding on the three tiers of government – the federal, state and local governments that share money monthly from the Federation Account.
The law provides sanctions for misuse (by any of the stakeholders) of allocations from the Federation Account. Law enforcement agencies can query officials of the three tiers if there is any breach of the law.
But the National Procurement Act is binding on the federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) only.
The Director of Finance and Supplies of the National Assembly, Mr. O. Adelami, declined to comment, on telephone last night, on the returned money.
He said: “I can’t talk to you, please. I am an accountant. My brief is to keep the books and account, but not to account to the media. Ask the CAN (Clerk National Assembly).
But the CAN, Alhaji Nasir Arab, could not be reached at press time.