Constituency Projects: How Lawmakers Are Diverting Public Funds — ICPC

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has accused members of the National Assembly of padding annual budgets with constituency projects which were never executed while the budgetary provisions were shared among the members.

The Commission also raised alarm about how the lawmakers allegedly diverted monies meant for their Senatorial Districts to other non-existing projects, thereby denying their constituents from benefiting from dividends of democracy. The agency said it has uncovered how the National Assembly illegally added N20 billion to N100 billion annual constituency projects

The ICPC said it was also able to save N28,868,621,227.55 billion, N418,326,604.25 million and N209,445,679.80 million respectively for the federal government through its ongoing Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Exercise (CEPTG).

In a document obtained the Commission stated that the sum included the estimated value of projects in which contractors were forced to return to sites, remedy defects from substandard construction or for the use of inferior materials as calculated from contract cost, cash recovery made as well as estimated value of physical items recovered as calculated from contract cost.

The Commission in the report also raised the alarm over the rise in infractions in appropriation, budget padding, which it alleged was still widely accepted and practiced by members of the National Assembly despite efforts being put in place to check such practices.

The ICPC stated this in its 2021 Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative (CEPTI) report, signed by the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye and endorsed by the MacArthur Foundation, with significant discoveries being recorded during the exercise from 2019 to 2021.

The document, which was the outcome of a 3-phase tracking exercise carried out by the ICPC, identified key sectors where several lawmakers from both chambers of the National Assembly, their aides, National Assembly staff, senior officers of executing agencies use subtle influences to appropriate contracts for projects to companies directly or indirectly own by them, their families or associates and how several recoveries were made to the tune of billions of naira both in cash and assets recovery during the period under investigation.

The commission collated the list of funded constituency and executive projects submitted by Budget Office of the Federation, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation with focus on key sectors like education, water, agriculture, power, health and empowerment projects.

According to the report, the cumulative savings for the government was the estimated value of the sum of its, “recoveries and the estimated cost of all those projects in which contractors return to sites as a result CEPTG activities.”

“The amounts are computed as savings made for Government because these were monies that would been lost/misappropriated save for the Commission’s intervention,” the Commission noted, adding that valuation reports in subsequent time would provide a definite value.

The document revealed that out of the estimated 2321 projects marked for tracking, a total of 1,098 had been tracked. Also, total appropriation for selected projects was N129,440,853,077.61 out of which N70,608,411,299.23 has been released to MDAs, while contract value of projects tracked so far was put at N310,061,892,687.49

The interim report of the Commission also provided an insight on how the National Assembly embedded additional projects into the 2021 mandate budget of MDAs, thereby causing inefficiency in budget performance as well as distorting developmental planning and implementation in the 2021 fiscal year.

The report read: “Budget insertion still remain an illegally acceptable phenomenon that has distorted the nation’s developmental planning and implementation of developmental programmes.

“In addition to the N100 billion appropriated annually for constituency projects, the National Assembly embeds additional projects into mandate budget of MDAs. This is done to increase the project portfolios of concerned legislators and their influence on MDAs. The value of the insertion were in billions.

“Analysing the 2021 National Budget alone across key sector of education, water resources, health, power, science and technology, environment, works and agriculture, we found duplications to the tune of over N20 billion.”

The Commission said although with the collaboration of the Ministry of Finance, implementation actions were restrained, it was however concerned about the practice as it has become a norm that, “even legislative aides and National Assembly staff serving in the appropriation committees also insert projects in the capital budgets of agencies without the knowledge of the legislators or the agencies.”

Other instances of infraction identified were constituency projects lawmakers manipulatively awarded to themselves or through cronies’ companies by sponsor and executing agencies

Examples the report pointed out included, “Contract for the construction and renovation of Blocks of Classroom at the Federal University Staff School, Wakuri Taraba South Senatorial District, executed by a company owned and operated directly by Senator Emmanuel Bwacha,” a project ICPC alleged was “haphazardly nominated, appropriated and executed in locations that have no need for such projects.”

In another development, the ICPC alleged another contract infraction in the supplies of water rigs by a particular company to be executed in Taraba South.

The Commission had alleged that, “just two days after the award of the contract, ‘the said company’, wrote to the executing agency, Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority informing it that it was involved in some sort of arrangements with its sister company in respect of the execution and requested that the contract sum should be into the bank account of the company owned by the sponsoring legislator.

It also alleged that, “the project for the procurement of water rigs to Taraba South, the rig which were never distributed, were distributed and supplied to the sponsor and were later found in the custody of the sponsor, commercialized, and the proceeds paid into the sponsor’s personal bank account.”

In similar development, the Commission also disclosed that it was able to track a contract for the supplies of 686 water pumping machines to Kebbi Central Senatorial District awarded to a particular company owned by the children of the lawmaker representing the District.

Another related case was the supply of tricycles to Rivers West Senatorial District as empowerment project, where it stated that the sponsor allegedly used one of her cronies (boy) as the contractor. The Commission alleged that, “while the contract was never performed, the sum (N30m) was fully paid and shared.”