A Civil Society Organization, Policy Alert has described as suspicious the processing of a N45B supplementary Bill by Akwa Ibom Assembly calling on the lawmakers to subject the bill to public scrutiny.
This is coming after Governor Udom Emmanuel made a fresh request for a N45B supplementary budget, less than one week after a public outcry may have stalled the Assembly from allegedly approving a N150B loan for the Governor.
The supplementary bill, made up of N41B for Recurrent Expenditure and N4Billion for Capital Expenditure is coming just two months into the 2023 fiscal year and was received via a letter during plenary last Thursday.
But the organization, promoting economic and ecological justice in the Niger Delta in a statement frowned at the haste to pass the bill and without the Assembly not subjecting it to public scrutiny
The statement, signed by it’s Programme Officer, Fiscal Reforms and Anti-Corruption, Faith Paulinus
also frowned at the non disclosure of items in the recurrent expenditure which make up.more than 90% of the supplementary bill.
“The haste by the legislators to get this done makes the entire process highly suspicious. By asking the House Committee on Appropriation and Finance to report back to the House within 24 hours after the second reading, the leadership of the Assembly has indicated that it may not be interested in taking citizens’ inputs into account in the consideration of the controversial supplementary budget.”
“We urge the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly allow sufficient time for thorough legislative scrutiny of this controversial supplementary appropriation bill and to subject the proposal to a public hearing in line with the traditional procedure of the legislature on bills and the principle of fiscal transparency and accountability.
” It would be an injustice and a slap on the collective intelligence of Akwa Ibom people to allow this supplementary budget to pass without giving citizens an opportunity to weigh the proposals against their actual priorities.
“We call on the legislature to resist the temptation of being rushed to accept the supplementary proposals hook, line and sinker. They must learn to feel the pulse of the citizens and prioritize the overriding public interest over partisan loyalties and electoral concerns. They should prudently examine the provisions line by line against extant fiscal data.” It said.
House Leader, Udo Akpan had said the Bill would increase the budget size of the state that was passed last year from N586Billion to N631Billion, an increase of N45Billion from when it was approved last year.
The Bill was read the second time and referred to the House Committee on Appropriation and Finance to report back to the House within 24 hours but is expected to interface with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies for further contributions on the Bill and legislative procedure before passage.
A newspaper had earlier reported that recent moves to obtain a loan was a decoy to use the yet to be paid 13% arrears as a collateral while the loan was meant to fund elections for the Governor’s preffered candidate.
“It could be recalled that in a string of Federal High Court judgments in 2021, the Federal Government had been ordered to pay $2.258 billion to Akwa Ibom State, $1.638 billion to the Delta State, $1.114 billion to Rivers State, and $951m to Bayelsa State, as share of recalculated oil derivation revenue in line with Section 16(1) of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract (PSC) Act
“Instead of waiting like other three States of the Niger Delta which the judgment covered, Governor Udom Emmanuel, devised a means to tap into the expected billions of naira even without receiving payments directly from the federal government. That strategy was to use the judgment as a guarantee to obtain secret loans from commercial banks. Our sources revealed that the loan deal was struck with First Bank PLC.
” However, the information on the bank the State struck the deal with was not independently verified by this reporter. Yet, one of our sources mentioned that the Governor is using the strategy so that his administration can enjoy part of the refunds since he envisages that the tranches of payments of the refunds may not come in the life of his administration.
“The reason for this loan, our sources who are privy to the plans confided, is to be used to run the 2023 elections and also enable the governor to have an upper hand in payment of delegates to ensure his succession plan flies
” Interestingly, this is not the first time the administration of Governor Udom Emmanuel would be acquiring loans secretly and under the mask of 13 percent derivation refund. This action which has gradually become a dark trend in the State dates back to July 2021.” The report said.
It also indicted members of the state Assembly after they amended the standing order of the house to enable them deliberate and process a loan request from the governor secretly in return for monetary and political gratification from the governor
“The standing order before the December 2020 amendment under Order 2 rule 2 (1) of the House tagged as ” Message from Governor” notes ” The Speaker shall immediately after prayer or as soon as any member has taken the Oath of Allegiance read to the House any message addressed to the House by the Governor.”
“However, in the amended version which created sub-rule (4) the standing order reads that a message from the Governor can be deliberated during executive session if the House of Assembly deems fit. ” A message from the Governor can be deliberated at the executive session if the members deem it fit and proper to be so considered in exceptional circumstances.
“TheMail has gathered that select members of the leadership of the House of Assembly in a meeting recently with the Governor consented that they would authorize the loan secretly so far their political interest in the 2023 election is protected and they also get a bite of the dark loan. Yet, it was agreed that this particular loan approval would not be discussed on the floor of the house else it would spark public outcry.” The report said.
