The Senate on Thursday 8th December, 2016 read for the second time “A Bill for an Act to provide for Constituency Projects in the Annual Budget of the Federation and other matters connected therewith 2016”.
Leading the debate on the Bill, the Bill’s sponsor, Sen. Stella Oduah (PDP:Anambra) stated that the Bill would provide a legal framework to provide constituency projects in the Annual Budget of the Federation by a minimum of 20%. Speaking on the importance of constituency projects, she mentioned that a constituency project was one of the ways of attracting federal presence to constituents. She also noted that but for constituency projects; majority of federal constituencies would have no federal projects due to the lopsided nature of project allocations in the budget.
Furthermore Sen. Oduah mentioned countries like Kenya, Uganda, India and Tanzania as examples of countries that have institutionalized constituency projects and called on the general public to advocate for an institutional framework for the implementation of constituency projects rather than criticize the National Assembly.
In addition, she explained that the role of the National Assembly was merely to identify the needs of the constituents and articulate them in the form of constituency projects for injection in the budget. According to her, legislators would have no direct control over the implementation of the project. Hence, the awarding, financing and supervision of constituency project are the preserves of appropriate agencies other than the National Assembly.
The bill has been referred to the Committees on Finance and Appropriation for further legislative action.
