Ndume introduces bill to strip MDAs of control over constituency projects
The Senate has introduced a bill to remove the powers of ministries and agencies to determine the funding, implementation and management of constituency projects initiated by federal lawmakers and accommodated in the annual budget.
The bill also seeks the establishment of a dedicated fund of not less then 2.5 per cent of the nation’s annual budget to be managed solely by the rural development department of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The move, which the lawmakers launched to stop the MDAs from determining contract awards and execution, was made to reduce abandoned and poorly executed projects due to non release or poor funding by the executive arm of government.
This, according to the bill will encourage the capturing of projects each lawmaker wishes to be executed for the purpose of infrastructure development, wealth creation and the fight against poverty in their verious constituencies.
Investigations by our reporter revealed that no amount from the N100 billion allocated for constituency projects funding in the 2019 budget has been released by President Muhammadu Buhari.
It was learnt that in the bid to find solutions to similar situations in the subsequent fiscal year, on Tuesday, Senator Ali Ndume, a former Senate Leader, sponsored the “Constituency Development Fund Bill, 2019”, which had scaled the first reading on the floor of the upper chamber.
The bill, according to a copy obtained by Daily Trust on Sunday, seeks to introduce a regime that would streamline the management and implementation of constituencies development fund in the country.
Unlike the current practice where MDAs are fully in charge, the new legislation seeks to entrust the execution of such projects in the hands of the rural development department of the proposed agency.
The decisions on the projects to be implemented, according to the bill, would remain with the various constituencies through the constituency development project advisory committees set up for each federal constituency and senatorial district.
The bill prescribed not less than five years jail term without the option of a fine for any person found guilty of misappropriating any fund, assists or causes any person to misappropriate or apply the funds outside the manner provided in the Act.