APPARENTLY disturbed by the concerns raised by Nigerians about the cost of running the National Assembly, Speaker of the House of Representatives has pledged to adopt what he calls ‘fiscal conservatism’ regarding all public funds spent for the purpose of paying salaries as well as other allowances.

This, according to the Speaker, is to ensure that distinction is sufficiently made between what a legislator earns and what is spent to run and implement legislative business and committee activities.

The Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, gave the pledge at plenary yesterday while unfolding the chamber’s legislative agenda for the next four years with a strong commitment to honour the trust reposed in it by the Nigerian people.

“The Seventh session of the House of Representatives recognises the concerns raised by Nigerians about the cost of running the National Assembly. The House will be more transparent regarding all public funds spent for the purpose of paying salaries and allowances of legislators and ensure that distinction is sufficiently made between what is spent to run and implement legislative business and committee activities”.

Tambuwal who spoke after the members held over two hours Executive meeting behind closed doors in the chamber assured that the House would in the next four years emphasise compliance with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) as well as the principles of global best practices.

Consequently, the Speaker specifically disclosed that henceforth, the Executive arm of government must seek input from the National Assembly in the preparation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework [MTEF].

He explained that the MTEF would be the basis for the preparation of the estimates of the annual national budget laid before the National Assembly among others.

Tambuwal said that the “constitutional provisions affecting the budgetary process and impacting on the application and implementation of the budget, including the provisions of Section 81 [1] of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that allows the President to lay the budget at anytime during the year, will be considered and proposed as part of constitution amendment process”.

The amendment, the Speaker said, is necessary to achieve the internationally recognised best practice of laying the budget before the parliament at least three months before the end of a fiscal year.

He explained that the House would also work to amend the provisions of Section 82 of the Constitution that authorises the President to incur expenditure up to six months after the budget is supposed to have been passed.

“With the amendment, expenditure will be limited to not more than three months of the beginning of the financial year.

The needs of the people will be an important factor in budget consideration and approval. The budget will be outcome driven and will adopt performance based budgeting system”, he said.

On reforms, Tambuwal said that the Seventh House of Representatives would continue the efforts at constitution reforms already begun by the Sixth National Assembly, adding that the technical collaboration with their Senate counterpart which, he said led to the first amendment to the 1999 Constitution in a civilian setting, would be adopted and fine tuned to achieve results.

He disclosed that the House would set up a Constitution Review Committee to immediately begin work on issues affecting the concerns of Nigerians particularly in the areas of land as well as electoral reforms, budgetary processes, fiscal federalism, local government and states creation requests among others.

“Citizenship and indigene issues that have been responsible for conflict in several communities across Nigeria will also be addressed in order to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the people”, he said.

Tambuwal whose speech was greeted with a standing ovation from members earlier assured that the House was set to surpass the expectations of the Nigerian people to represent their best interests.

He said the agenda of the House in the next four years was aimed at reviving and diversifying the economy, generating employment, strengthening the country’s national security, curbing corruption, tackling the electricity crisis, health and educational sectors and general infrastructural decay that confront Nigerians in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).]

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52868:tambuwal-pledges-to-cut-cost-of-nassembly&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

All talk and no action.