By Ken Edokpayi
The
leadership of the Edo State House of Assembly has again been accused of
goofing and falling short of the people’s expectations, especially in
the vital areas of sponsoring pro-people bills and exerting its
authority in oversight responsibilities.
In a recent chat with The Navigator,
shortly after observing one round of the on-going budget defence
exercise of government ministries, departments and agencies, a
Benin-based public affairs commentator and political analyst, Elder
Solomon Edosomwan, observed that it was getting clearer by the day that
the state legislature “has a separate agenda other than to assist in
ensuring peace, development and good governance of Edo State.” He
maintained that there were “very strong and lamentable indications that
the legislators may spend the remaining three years of their mandate
misrepresenting the people they were elected to serve.
Elder
Edosomwan was particularly piqued by the shocking attitude of the
leadership of the House to have told the State Commissioner for Health,
Dr. Cordelia Aiwuze, to take a bow and leave the chambers, “when there
were crying grey areas in the activities of her ministry the legislators
should have demanded explanations from her.”
In
his words, “Of all the public servants in Edo State at the moment, the
Health Commissioner is one person Edo people will want to see and listen
to on the activities of her ministry pertaining to the health needs of
victims of the river surge and flood devastation that have ravaged three
local government areas, namely Etsako Central, Etsako East and Esan
South East. Edo people would have loved to hear how our troubled
brothers and sisters are faring. The legislators did not bother.”
He
maintained that in determined efforts to ameliorate the plight of the
victims, whose entire households and villages were submerged in the
raging flood, donations of N400million and N100million came from the
federal and the Edo State Governments respectively, wondering why the
house leadership did not think it appropriate to question the Health
Commissioner on the utilization of the funds, including charity, food
and relief items from international, local and donor agencies.
Edosomwan
explained further, “By the exact nature of the camp settlements for the
victims of the unfortunate disaster, epidemics and other health-related
adversity are most likely as we have frequently heard it reported in
the media. There have also been loud complaints that the drugs met for
some of these settlements are either being diverted or sold. In
addition to the budget performance in the Health sub-sector, there are
areas Edo people were expecting the Health Commissioner to address, and
even advise government, on what next to do to help the displaced people.
“This
golden opportunity was thwarted by the State House of Assembly for very
selfish reasons. Otherwise, what justification or rationalization does
the House have to ask the Commissioner to simply take a bow and leave
the chamber, other than the fact that the Commissioner ‘performed’ far
above expectation.”
While
Elder Edosomwan berated the House on the legislative melodrama, he
emphasized that two visible parliamentary concepts were taken to the
cleaners, abused and denigrated in the process. In his words, “ ‘Taking
a bow’ was misused and abused; and further subjecting the concept to a
further ‘debate’ and resolution, again, revealed a parliament with its
theatre of the absurd content and form with a very deficient leadership.
“The
appearance of the Health Commissioner was a golden opportunity for Edo
people to know how the N500million from the federal and Edo state
government was utilized. Meanwhile, what is on ground in the various
camps in the three local government areas affected by the flood disaster
is a far cry from the monies and relief materials we read and hear in
the media.
“The
Edo State of House of Assembly must, therefore apologise to Edo people
for this obvious gaffe and bring back the Health Commissioner to do her
job before the expected dissolution of the State Executive council.
Anything, other than this, would be unacceptable to the people of the
state.”
While reacting to the development, in separate chat with The Navigator,
Mr. Eghosa Onaghise, a civil servant, noted that “it is quite
unfortunate that these things are happening here. One can understand
when a ministerial or commissioner nominee, or any other public office
designate, is asked to take a bow during screening in parliament,
probably because of a well-know impeccable reputation or as a result of
an affiliatingespirit-de-corps.
It certainly does not apply in a situation, like this, where a head of
a department comes with a brief on the performance of the budget,
especially towards the end of the budget year. From the revelations so
far from those who have presented their briefs, there has been a common
denomination: money assessed has been a far cry from money budgeted, and
thus, the budget performance for 2012 has been below 30%.”
Onaghise,
therefore, canvassed for a serious consideration on the parts of the
people and the electorate, to thoroughly screen those that are offering
themselves for elective positions, especially into the State House of
Assembly, in the state. “We must ensure those we send there have the
required intellectual capacities for logical reasoning and for the
challenges of legislative business generally. Again, it is advisable
that governors should steer clear from imposing Speakers on the members
of the state legislature, because experience has shown that imposed
Speakers usually, willy-nilly, toe the line of their principals.”
TheNavigator
