Sometimes in June last year, the chairman of the House of Representatives Public Account Committee (PAC), Hon. Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, raised an alarm of a seemingly fraudulent practice perpetrated though “Service Wide Votes” in budget for capital development by ministries, department and agencies (MDAs). His findings from audit queries raised by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation between 2003 and 2006 revealed a misuse of budgetary allocation under the nebulous head of “Service Wide Votes” which in theory were meant to handle contingencies , emergencies and unforeseen circumstances not captured under any headings in appropriations for MDAs. A total sum of N21,103,363,588.92 allocated for execution of capital projects by 22 MDAs from 2003 to 2006 was misappropriated!

The chairman of House’s PAC then said the House was going to move for the removal of “Service Wide Votes” from the Budget as it has not only become a conduit pipe for siphoning public fund but also a clever way of circumventing or curtailing the constitutional power of the legislature sanctioning all public expenditure as encapsulated in Section 80 of 1999 Constitution.

His position then as reported in the newspapers is captured succinctly in his words as follows: “There should be nothing like Service Wide Vote. Our position is premised on the fact that it is an avenue for the government to spend money that was not duly appropriated for. If we check what makes up the Service Wide Vote in the budget of the Federal Government, you will find out that it is the breakdown of heads and sub-heads of budgets already contained in the original budget of the various MDAs of government. This is not enough for them; they still want an omnibus vote whereby the breakdown of which will be centrally attached to each of these agencies again and tag it the Service Wide Vote.”

Almost a year after this position statement, it is now paramount that the federal legislators must do something to curtail if not eliminate what may amount to “contingency scams” in the league of fuel subsidy scam where billions of naira of public fund are diverted fraudulently. This conclusion follows the appearance of the Director General of Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu, before PAC on Wednesday June 18, 2013 to answer audit queries on some expenditure in his office under the “Service Wide Votes”. The revelations in that encounter were so mind boggling and tortuous that a member of the PAC at the sitting, Hon. (Dr.) Babatunde Adejare, a medical doctor, complained loudly that the quantum of the funds that are apparently misappropriated is giving him severe headache as a drop in this sea of seeming official looting would address all his yet to be financed constituency projects like provision of water for his people, school buildings and medical centres.

The figures which were really a tip of the iceberg in some previous years should indeed give any patriotic Nigerian severe headache. The DG of Budget Office of the Federation was asked to explain N1.2 billion expenditure in three months for a Presidential Project Assessment Committee, which was what really galled Hon. (Dr.) Adejare, an N377 million for settlement of outstanding liabilities, certainly not a contingency, $775,000 for contribution to Economic Commission of West African States and N410 million for capacity building for Ministry of Finance.

A perceptibly perturbed Hon. Odeneye Kehinde, an accountant and another member of PAC, preemptively dismissed all these expenditures as not falling within the purview of the intendment of what “Service Wide Votes” meant to serve as contingency. He said both in accounting and dictionary definition these expenditures are not contingencies as they could have been easily budgeted for in Appropriation Acts. Indeed, when the chairman of PAC requested to know from a Ministry of Finance official at the sitting if capacity building was in their original budget he answered in the affirmative indicating that the N410 million from “Service Wide Votes” is not only a non emergency situation but also duplication suggestive of fraudulent practice. For the DG of budget these expenditures can be explained away and justified as they received “approval the Presidency”.

But other more bizarre expenditures were queried and PAC agreed with the Auditor General’s report that explanation and authentication is needed from relevant bodies as they are all suggestive of fraud and clever way to breach the constitution and diminish the power of the legislature over the purse of FG. To produce and circulate a magazine called “Servant Leader Magazine” a princely sum of N59.9 million was expended while N300 million was expended for 2010 World Cup from the “Services Wide Votes”. Equally N75 million was spent on lobbying for Federal Government in Washington DC while NNPC got N257 million as consultancy fees! The expenditure that most irked Hon. Adeola was N514 million for auditing of some FG accounts by private firms while the constitutional and statutory body charged with auditing of FG account is severely starved of funds for its work. He was pained that the budget request of the Auditor General’s Office of N1.2 billion was pruned down to about N800 million while private firms got over a half of the yearly budget of a constitutional body! Predictably he ordered for the names of the audit firms, the accounts that they audited and the audit reports to be furnished to PAC as well as all the details of all the above outlandish expenditures for further investigations as a short term measures to check abuse of “Service Wide Votes” and the patent corruption therein.

But as a long lasting solution, the chairman of PAC opined that the House of Representatives may want to champion a bill to ban the omnibus “Service Wide Votes” as it not only promotes corruption but also duplicative and contravention of provision of the constitution for “Contingencies Fund” as enshrined in Section 83 (1) and (2) of the constitution. Indeed, another member of the PAC, Hon. Mohammed Umaru Bago stated that the misused of “Service Wide Votes” is meant to circumvent the provisions of the constitution for Supplementary Budget contained in Section 81(4)a & b. He said in an ideal situation, the kind of expenditures enumerated above which did not really fall into contingencies should come in form of Supplementary Budget before the National Assembly for approval adding that the recourse to “Service Wide Votes” is a way of avoiding the scrutiny of the legislature by the executive. He therefore was all for the scrapping of the “Service Wide Votes”.

Without doubt the “Service Wide Votes”, whatever its merits as Dr. Okogu unconvincingly tried to justify has turn out to one huge scam against the resources of Nigerian people and it is in the interest of Nigeria that the scam is outlawed through a specific Act of the National Assembly as we cannot continue to lose money into private pockets under the pretext of addressing ‘emergencies’ or contingencies’ ‘needs’ of such things as publication and circulation of an ego massaging magazine for almost N60 million or private firms auditing of government accounst for N514 million while the office of the Auditor General goes cap in hand looking for money to do a constitutional duty. The earlier the National Assembly rise up to the occasion of scrapping this conduit pipe of our money in face of ever contracting finances, the better for us that they represent in government as one is sure that the Budget Office will want these abuses to continue in the name of “presidency approval”.

•Chief Kayode Odunaro JP [seen (right) in photo with Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State], writes from Segun Osoba Road, Oke Ilewo, Abeokuta, Ogun State. He can be reached via kayodunaro@hotmail.com

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