N/Assembly’s PAC: Game changer for Buhari’s second term

Among the great expectations that have been ushering in the forthcoming Ninth National Assembly, are those bordering on the likely interface between the federal legislature and the Presidency – a factor that has the prospects of defining both character and tempo of governance at all the three tiers of governance. It is therefore not for […]

Among the great expectations that have been ushering in the forthcoming Ninth National Assembly, are those bordering on the likely interface between the federal legislature and the Presidency – a factor that has the prospects of defining both character and tempo of governance at all the three tiers of governance. It is therefore not for nothing that the ruling APC is leaving nothing to chance over asserting its interest in determining the leadership of two chambers of the National Assembly during the equally forthcoming dispensation of Buhari’s second term. President Muhammadu Buhari himself had all along not come out directly to dictate his preferences in respect of who gets what position, even as he has allowed his name to be dropped by sundry party officials, in order to muster support for favourites, in the contest for the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly.

However much of that picture changed last week when Buhari volunteered his personal disposition towards the interface between the Presidency during first term, and the leadership of the outgoing Eighth National Assembly, thereby setting the stage for his expectations of the incoming Ninth National Assembly. During the breaking of the Ramadan fast with the leadership of the two Chambers of the National Assembly last Tuesday at the State House, President Buhari expressed his disappointment with the frosty relationship that prevailed between the Presidency and the National Assembly all through his first term in office. Speaking further on the issue he expressed the hope of a better interface between these arms of government so that “we can serve the people better”.

Perhaps not mentioned in Buhari’s take at the event, may be the fact that much as he remains deeply concerned with serving the “people better” in his second term, the success of that dispensation lies more with whatever reform he needs to allow in the executive arm, than the expectation of more cordial relations between him and whichever leaders emerge for the Ninth National Assembly. For even if a more pliant leadership for the Ninth National Assembly eventually emerges, the President still needs to look deeper into the operational circumstances of his primary terrain, the   executive arm of government. That is so, if he has to break new grounds in governance, especially with respect to the three key targets of his administration which are fighting corruption, taming insurgency and re-growing Nigeria’s economy. While the President had unarguably deployed considerable energy and commitment to these goals, the dividends, even by his own admission, have not matched the complement of human and material resources deployed for their actualization, by any measure.

Against the backdrop of the foregoing therefore, the trending expectations of Nigerians are shifting less towards the course of any leadership tussle in the National Assembly, and more on the installation of good governance. That is where a new deal from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives which promises a better template for collaboration between the two arms of government as well as enhanced   operational synergy over the management of public funds by MDAs, matters more than any glass clinking, ceremonial camaraderie of the leaderships of the two arms of government.

The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, with its Chairman as Honourable Kingsley Chinda has commenced the digital processing of the Annual Reports of the Auditor-General of the Federation (AuGF) and thereby transforming in real-time basis, the audit control of public funds acquisition and disbursement by MDAs. This dispensation also offers hope of a better governance culture in the country. Understandably, with the capacity of the PAC to track the footprints of public funds under the management purview of MDAs, the incidence of free-for-all looting and mismanagement of such resources, will not only be drastically reduced. It will also bring to book erring officials, as well as recover stolen public property.

Constitutionally, the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) is empowered to conduct audit exercises on the management of public funds as appropriated by the National Assembly and report same to the legislature. It is also the duty of the PAC to scrutinise the report of the AuGF report and initiate legislative response wherever and whenever necessary. This arrangement is a provision of the Constitution and provides one of the core premises for collaboration between the legislature and the executive arms. However, until recently the reports from the MDAs have been delivered for scrutiny in large bulky paper work, with some knowingly submitted as patent ‘swindle sheets’ which perpetrators hope would lead investigators in the wrong direction.

Innocuous as this development may sound to the uninitiated, its success constitutes the long sought-after panacea to the age-old syndrome of mindless misuse, graft and diversion of public funds in MDAs, which has largely accounted for the numerous woes of governance in the country. The Constitution confers on the National Assembly the powers to expose corruption, inefficiency, or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement of funds appropriated by it.

Leveraging on that provision, the PAC has already deployed its new platform to track operational fiscal infractions leading to the discovery of over 3,000 unresolved audit queries and an estimated total of over 20,000 yet to be identified. These queries were issued by the OAuGF to erring MDAs over several years but were left unattended to due to the humongous scope of paper work involved in resolving them. Just as well many of the culprits have also escaped with dividends of their nefarious enterprise.

With this development of the PAC digitization initiative, the new focus for President Buhari in his promotion of more harmonious ties with the legislature, remains clearly cut of as primarily the re-orientation of the MDAs under the executive arm to buy into the new order. With the faster pace by the National Assembly in processing MDA reports and tracking audit queries, it is inevitable that fresh pressures will bear on not a few MDAs that suffer the plague of systemic lethargy. That situation alone constitutes a surefire avenue for conflicts between affected the National   Assembly and those MDAs with institutional recalcitrance as well as lethargy in their corporate set up. It cannot be ruled out that such may rally for Presidential protection from the hammer of the National Assembly even in their failure. The President will also do well to allow such to taste the bitter pain of misconduct as shall be due, in order not to attract the harsh judgment of posterity for shielding and protecting thieves as well as other miscreants, whose contributions to his legacies will be negative.

Without any iota of doubt, the exercise will prove as herculean as they come, given the degree of systemic rot in the central bureaucracy.