Former Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang on Thursday, attributed the failure of the Nigerian economy, the escalating debt burden, and the depreciation of the national currency, the naira, to the National Assembly.
Enang made these assertions during the public unveiling of Oversight Magazine, dedicated to parliamentary reporting and published by former House of Representatives member, Aniekan Umannah.
Enang emphasized that the National Assembly’s neglect to pose pertinent inquiries was to blame for the economic challenges.
Drawing from his experience as Chairman of both the House and Senate Committee on Rules and Business, he highlighted that neither chamber of the National Assembly has fulfilled its obligation to publish reports on oversight activities or interrogate crucial issues surrounding national debt.
He criticized the Assembly for frequently conducting oversight visits to monitor the activities of government agencies without subsequently presenting their findings for parliamentary deliberation.
Enang contended that the inefficiency of the executive branch, both at the state and national levels, is directly linked to the shortcomings in oversight functions carried out by the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly nationwide.
“It is the fault of the National Assembly failing to do their oversight function. If the National Assembly were able, they would ask questions. When you pass a budget, you embark on oversight to see how much of that budget has been released and to what extent the projects in that budget have been executed.
“After that, you bring a report to the floor stating how much has been released and to what extent that project has been executed. You will then know how much is needed to complete those projects that will be included in next year’s budget and what to project in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, in the next three years to exit that project.
“So, the failure of the Nigerian economy, the collapse of the naira and the unimaginable debt of Nigeria is the failure of the National Assembly,” he said.
