Senate blames lack of political will for poor program implementation

 

BY OUR EDITOR

The Senate has blamed lack of political will on the part of the Executive for poor implementation of programmes meant for national development.

It subsequently mandated its committees on National Planning, Finance and Appropriation to hold discussions with the relevant Federal Government agencies with a view to coming up with a robust national planning and budgetary process that will guide the country’s future development.

The Senate Committee on National Planning was task with the responsibility of leading the discussions.

The Senate resolution followed a motion sponsored by Senator Stella Adaeze Odua (Anambra North), on “the need to establish a visionary budget-driven national planning framework for Nigeria.”

The motion which enjoyed widespread acceptance by the senators was co-sponsored by senators Gershom Henry Bassey (Cross River South), Aishatu Ahmed Dahiru (Adamawa Central), Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South), Betty Jocelyn Apiafi (Rivers West) and Jibrin Barau (Kano North).

Odua while presenting the motion on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, said that it was disturbing that despite various plans articulated by the country over the years, Nigeria continues to adopt annual national budgets that do not reflect a buy-in from relevant stakeholders and MDAs, towards implementing and achieving the development goals set out in the national development strategies and plans.

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According to Senator Oduah, “Without a visionary budget-driven national development plan, growth strategies and the respective MDAs will continue to fall short of achieving their goals and projects will have little or no purpose. There will continue to be a high propensity for wasteful resource allocation and/or overlapping projects.

“Therefore, addressing these issues must be at the heart of the next generation of mid-term and long-term national development plans (for example, Nigeria 2050) and subsequent budgeting circles in Nigeria.”

Opinions by senators were diverse but majority of the speakers narrowed the issue to lack of political will on the part of the executive arm, to implement the plans as have been articulated.

“If we can put up the political will to solve problems then this issue will be resolved. This is the reason why we have so much abandoned projects which worth trillions so it is the issue of political will and I think it is high time we allowed the political will to prevail in this country. We must agree on what bill we need to put forward so that the entire Senate will do the needful and resolve the age long constraints of lack of political will,” Senator Aliyu Sabi said.

For Senator Aishatu Dahiru, the challenges enumerated in the motion were responsible for the insecurity which the country is currently battling.

She said: “All these can be attributed to failure of strict adherence to national development plan upon which our national budget premise on. Ministers are largely responsible for this. As a legislature, we have constitutional responsibility to monitor project implementation on the basis of national development planning. Legislators are not responsible for budget implementation but are only responsible for budget performances. The legislature can only oversight what is being approved.”

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Senator Ibikunle Amosun was more vehement in his contribution: “Our problem is not that we are bereft of ideas, we need the political will. What we can do is to force the executive to follow through all plans. We have national planning but what has happened? Because we do not have political will.

“What we can do as legislature is when we are oversighting, we look at critical projects and enforce the executive to follow through on plans.”

However, Senator Bassey Akpan begged to differ. He said: “I think we need to have a different approach. It is not about the will, if you have the will and you do not have the resources what would happen? We must be very strategic and we must be sure that whatever we do, we do it holistically.”

But the Senate Deputy President, Ovie Omo-Agege, disagreed with Senator Akpan on the issue of lack of resources. For him the resources are there, likewise the ideas.

He said: “This motion has provoked a lot of reactions from our colleagues. It is very clear that we are not bereft of ideas, I also disagree with those who said the resources are not there, the resources are there.

“I agree with those who said it has to do with the lack of political will.”

At the end of the debate, the motion was adopted and the senate agreed to mandate its committees involved in national planning, finance and appropriation to meet with the relevant agencies of the executive to work out a national planning and budgetary process that will guide the country’s future development.