Budget Padding: NEFGAD Threatens Court Action Against FG, National Assembly
The Network for the Actualization of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD) , a public procurement advocacy group, has issued a pre-action notice to the Federal Government and National Assembly over the issue of budget interference by the latter.
Pre-action notice is a statutory provision which requires notice of intended action to be first served on a certain would-be defendant by an aggrieved party before such aggrieved party may seek judicial redress.
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The group made this known in a letter signed by its head of office, Mr Akingunola Omoniyi and sent to President Bola Tinubu, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt Hon Tajudeen Abbas.
RECALL(LINK) that the Senate suspended the senator representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District, Abdul Ningi, for three months for alleging that the 2024 budget was padded with N3 trillion.
Omoniyi argued that project initiation by members of the lawmakers is beyond the legislative powers of the National Assembly as outlined in the Nigerian constitution and the Public Procurement Act 2007.
“The power to initiate any procurement proceeding is purely an executive function and lays with procuring entities/ministerial and extra-ministerial procurement committees and such must be conducted strictly in line with section 18 (a, b, c d, e, f and g) of the Public Procurement Act 2007 which mandates procuring entities to engage in planning of procurement in order to prepare the needs assessment and evaluation; identifying the goods/works or services required; carrying appropriate market and statistical surveys; and on the basis prepare an analysis of the cost implications of the proposed procurement; aggregate its requirements wherever possible/both within the procuring entities to obtain economy of scale to reduce procurement cost; and ensuring that the procurement entity functions as stipulated to be carried out by the procurement planning committee,” he said.
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He stressed that the spirit and letter of the Public Procurement Act underscores the need to organise procurement in a manner that ensures economy of scale, guide against undue interference and by ensuring that the process maintains a high level of proven system scrutiny and integrity.
“Hence, any project/procurement item that does not satisfy legally outlined planning and organizational criteria (as in the case of constituency projects which are inserted midway into public procurement proceeding by the National Assembly) is utterly defective,’’ he said.
Omoniyi frowned at the usual practice of the National Assembly to upwardly/downwardly review budget estimates during Budget presentations/defense saying that it is improper and unlawful.
This, he said, is because the appropriation bill is an executive bill and all procurement items are assumed to have passed through due and highly technical process of procurement assessment; evaluation; market and survey/price intelligence among others as enshrined in the PPA.
“Hence, any cost/project anomalies observed becomes an indictment on the procurement planning committees saddled with the projects costing responsibilities, he said such cannot be corrected overnight by the National Assembly right at the hollow chamber,” he said.
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He however posited that incase of possible errors/inadequacies in the budgetary allocations, the National Assembly can return the entire appropriation bill to the president who will make necessary corrections/amendments through the procuring entities/procurement planning committees and represent to the National Assembly for reconsideration.
‘’The legislative power of the National Assembly is to make laws, and such power in itself is not without limit, particularly on public procurement. The power had been sufficiently exercised by the enactment of the extant Public Procurement Act 2007 hence, any conduct of the National Assembly on public contracts outside of the extant public procurement Act/regulations amounts to abuse of power,’’ he added.
