Nigeria Content Online

The
Federal Government is yet to implement the report of the House on the
annual manipulation of unspent budget by senior officials and no arrest
has so far been made in regard to the report, the Speaker of the House
of Representative, Dimeji Bankole, said yesterday in Ibadan at the
inauguration of the leadership of the Yoruba Academy.

He also said there
should be more stringent monitoring of other arms of government, rather
than the usual focus on the executive arms of government alone, to
ensure accountability and faithful service delivery. According to Mr.
Bankole,

“We even
discovered in one single agency, Nigerian Ports Authority, how N11
billion was remitted out of N48 billion,” he said. “I don’t know who
EFCC and ICPC are looking for. It got so bad that I have to take the
floor myself sponsoring a bill to ensure that public funds are
judiciously accounted for. Of course, at the public hearing, civil
servants came and the people condemned it.”

Mr. Bankole, who
said his Speakership is part of the achievements of the Yoruba since the
inception of democracy, said the gap between the government and the
governed is getting wider by the day, as the governed have little to
sway in holding their leaders accountable.

“A week after I became the Speaker, the executive brought the budget
to the House. It was a budget of N1.6 trillion and in the budget
proposal, they brought an item called ‘unspent fund’ of N21billion out
of N1.6 trillion. This means that the budget must have performed to the
95%, but we all knew that the budget performance was between 30% and
35%. I was the deputy chairman of the finance committee before I became
the Speaker, so I had an idea of some of the things. After asking
questions, two weeks later, N21 billion became N450 billion. You now ask
the question, what could have happened to that money or what has been
happening to the money many years before. No arrest was made o! No
arrest was made!”