The National Assembly has urged state assemblies not to abuse the Constitution Amendment Act approving financial autonomy for state Houses of Assembly by approving jumbo allowances for state legislators.
Clerk to the National Assembly, Mohammed Sani-Omolori, stated that any infractions of the financial regulations on the part of clerks, legislators or Presiding Officers, will amount to corrupt practice.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday at a Conference of State Houses of Assembly Service Commissions on Operating Within the Context of First Line Charge, he said the recent signing of the Constitution 4th Alteration Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari entails greater responsibility for state legislatures.
Declaring the event open, Sani-Omolori said that financial autonomy for state legislatures was not an avenue for the legislature to become financially reckless.
His words: “It is important to clarify that financial autonomy is not synonymous with the authority to operate outside the ambit of extant financial rules and regulations.
“Therefore, we must not misconstrue it as a license for Accounting Officers or Presiding Officers to embark on frivolous expenditure or approve ridiculous sums to State Legislators as jumbo allowances, wages and other forms of expenditure for themselves.
“May I caution here that any infractions of the Financial Regulations on the park of a Clerk, a Legislator or Presiding Officer, will amount to corrupt practice. Corrupt practices on the part of a Public Official constitute betrayal of public trust and will have the net effect of damaging citizens’ confidence in democratic institutions”.
Earlier, the Director General, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Ladi Hamalai told lawmakers that there cannot be effective financial autonomy without the establishment of a service commission.
She explained that for the legislature in the states to be autonomous, they must be fully responsible for all the affairs that concern them.
With particular reference to the principles of separation of power, she said that the legislature could not be said to be independent if the executive arm was still in charge of employing and deploying staff members of the legislature.
“We must all pass the Act establishing the Service Commission, it is part of the principles of separation of power,” she stated.
Reiterating the role of service commission in effective autonomy, the Secretary of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), Olu Ajakaiye, said financial autonomy would be incomplete without administrative autonomy.
He also called on state assemblies yet to establish State Assembly Service Commission to do so, adding that this would create independent bureaucracy for their day-to-day administration.
He recalled that the period of financial dependence was very torturous as the legislature had to go cap in hand to the executive anytime they had a programme or project.
He therefore admonished the lawmakers that they must also push for administrative autonomy and take over the management of their staff if they must reap the benefit of the financial autonomy recently granted them.
