Efio-Ita Nyok|19 May 2016|7:00am
You know the governor's idea was to compartmentalize government beyond the Keynesian theory and make government into smaller units. Let's have a small office of a commissioner even with his laptop without an office, a visual office, but is able to deliver service… What Sen. Ayade wants to see, he wants to see 28 Commissioners with smaller units of responsibilities, but able to deliver 100% on that responsibility. So, it's working in several areas; but there are some areas that it's not working as we speak: Environment is one of them
On Monday 9th May 2016, Negroid Haven met with the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo, of Abi State Constituency in a brief interview session of 25 minutes at his Cross River State House of Assembly complex office.
In the brief but interesting interview session, the Rt. Hon. Speaker responded to a handful of questions that bordered on five principal as well as controversial areas, namely, the ownership of the Cross River State Garment Factory Limited, payment of salaries, waste management in the state especially the capital city Calabar, the Nko/Mkpani communal crisis and Ifere Paul's litigation at the Federal High Court in Abuja, etc.
NH: Cross Riverians intend to know who owns the Cross River State Garment Factory Limited. Is it the CRSG and by extension CRS, or is it the private estate of whosoever?
SPEAKER: The Garment Factory is owned by Cross River State Government. There is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), the CRSGF registered by Ministry of Finance and then, there is provision, it's also captured in the budget as Government Project appropriated for and defended during the 2016 Budget as a state project. And then it's been part of the economic promise of the governor upon inauguration.
NH: How is the House of Assembly reacting to the idea of a cross section of the work force in CRS not having received their salaries?
SPEAKER: Well, you need to distinguish between Executive responsibility and legislative responsibility. Our responsibility is to make laws, oversight the laws, and create legal regulatory frameworks to enable government function. We try to strengthen institutions of government so that law can actually be an instrument of social change or engineering. So, we don't venture into the Executive sphere of responsibility. What we try to do is to oversight those areas. We've provided for an evacuation corridor; that is, a recovery space…an economic recovery space in the budget process to enable the governor take care of salaries, assuming our Federation Allocation is short and assuming our Internal Generated Revenue is short. So, the House of Assembly has created a window within the budget that will enable us to take care of that project. If you check, all the revenue mobilisation figures and internal revenue are not approximately the same in all months. But, in some months they are higher, in some months they are low. So, what we've done is to do simple mathematics, aggregate everything that comes at the end of the year: How much can probably come in? How much do we need to pay salaries? And then deal with this as a whole. So that we can now compartmentalise.
Because the salaries figures are the same on a monthly basis, we have created that window. So, if the governor decides that they should pay salaries at the first of May as a celebration of the Workers' Day, it is not the statutory provision that salaries would be paid on the first; it was just part of the celebration of the May Day events and to show that the government has the capacity to take the welfare of the people first class. This is what he is doing, I don't think that the governor should be judged on whether it's too early to pay the salaries, the governor should rather be judged on, within our own economic recovery space, we have the capacity to pay salaries on the first, when other states have not even paid salaries for the last 4-5 months. That is what should be done. It's just that the governor has just shown the flexibility of the financial management system that has been put in place: the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the Public Finance Laws. And then the 2016 Appropriation Law. That is, you can turn it this way and it can work. In case of an emergency… it's a good signal for Cross River that in case of an emergency, Governor Ayade can react 30 days to the end of the month and solve situations.
I have had people who have done SMS to me as Mr. Speaker asking if I can give them their salaries in advance at the beginning of every month to enable them solve emergencies; I think the governor has touched a whole lot of that. There are still people who would not put good use to that salary. Even if you pay it at the 5th of every month, they won't be able to show…Let it be taken as that, what the governor has done, is a good economic and political experiment of out time. So, he should be applauded. For politicians, I think politicians have been paid, because I am a politician, and I have been paid on the first… And I know other appointees have been paid.
For local government, we run a different financial scape. The state allocation is different from the Joint Local Government Account (JAAC) as runned by the Local Governments. Their allocation do not come at the same with our own. They don't work on our IGR. The LGs have their IGR. By the time each Chairman of Council brings their total IGR and they look at what they have apart from their JAAC, it's a different ballgame. Teachers and all of that are incorporated with that. So, what has happened is that we have made an arrangement to make sure that at any point there is a shortfall in the LG revenue, we also are able to meet up so that our LG staff get paid.
The House of Assembly had made such a resolution and provision in the 2016 Budget. Now, the difference is that, it is easy for the state Executive Council to meet and approve all of those figures for the governor to pay; and then it is easy for the governor to approach the House of Assembly saying, that there is difficulty… We need to invoke certain provisions: the National Appropriation Law in the particular quarter of the year to deal with these issues.
But, in the LG we need to get to get all the 18 LG Chairmen to meet, make them to come into consensus as to what to pay; We need to look at the figures provided from FAAC. And then, it's now left for us to come back to the state government for us to borrow either from the excess that we have from FAAC or IGR. Or, if we don't have, the governor issues an instrument to borrow extra money, which he always does, every month, some times, one billion every month, to be able to pay LG salaries. Because, what comes to LG is 1.5 billion always,…N1.2, N1.5 billion less than what they need. So, the governor has always have to borrow. I think it's some kind of of an economic magic. He is going to deal with that.
Now, there are two options: You can leave each LG to handle its own allocation. There are a lot of people who are talk about allowing every LG… If you do, only 6 LGs will be able to pay their salaries in CR. The rest cannot pay. And we are going to find a situation where maybe Calabar Municipality will pay, Calabar South will pay, and then maybe Abi and Yakurr may not be able to pay. That will happen but because we have a harmonised LG law, we decided to put our risk in one bag, and ensure that we deal with the situations one off. So, that's the situation.
So, for the other workers who are not within the state salary scale, the governor cannot exercise that kind of fiat. He needs to compel the Chairmen of LG. He needs to have the JAAC Account, they need to be resolutions at the state EXCO and then he needs the resolutions of all the LG legislators for them to borrow money to pay. And so, their own governance architecture is different from our situation. That's why you can't muzzle the LG and state government account of Salaries payment together.
NH: Will the judge sitting at the High Court in Abuja take your explanation as a solid premise upon which to rile against Ifere Paul's argument that has been brought before him?
SPEAKER: Well, Ifere Paul is in court seeking for a declaration. You understand. I don't think he has raised any serious arguable issues. He is talking about declaration. If he gets the declaration, now, what locus standi does he have in respect of the issues he has raised?
To particularly take an order, for instance, an order of injunction or an order restraining the state government from making use of certain funds. For me, there is nothing wrong for any body to go to court and challenge whatever he wants to, that is, the freedom that we have as citizens of CRS; but, when you go to court you must be able to look at three things. Number one: there is a difference between justice and peace… You go to court and say, they slapped me on my left cheek and it's against the law; the court says yes, it's against the law. That is one. When you come back, it is not guaranteed that somebody else will not slap you; so, your conduct and your relationship management strategy with other people will determine. So, you cannot carry the court judgement all over the street and say you have got a judgment, nobody should slap me; you still need to be able to bring your relationship management skill to deal with that issue. That is number one.
Number two, you can go to court as a private citizen and get declaration in respect of certain things. But declaratory orders are not enforceable orders. It is a judgment in theory not a judgment in practice. Now, there are established case law principles in respect of some of the issues that he has raised. That is why I say they have not raised any arguable issues. Arguable issues that if you say the management of local government account and state government account, at least there are 15 Supreme Court judgements that have been given in another case and all of that. As far as I am concerned, I am not the Attorney General of Cross River State, but I know that there is nothing new, nothing arguably new in that matter that has not been raised in respect of that issue.
Then number three, is that the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court will be limited because the Federal High Court will not sit down and begin to interpret the CRS LG law, which is a law passed by the CRSHA and whose jurisdiction inures only in the High Court of CRS not the Federal High Court. What he is talking about at the Federal High Court is the Federal Allocation account. I don't have a problem; but the JAAC was created by a law of the CRSHA. So, at the end of the day, when he is done with the Federal High Court, one of the issues that will arise is the issue of jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to deal with the issue of CRSG in respect of a law passed by the CRSHA. You will get the Supreme Court judgement and then we will come back and start at the state high Court. So, those issues are there.
For me, it is the right step he is taking to challenge and get the declaration. When he gets the declaration we will now begin to look at the legal implication of those things. But, there is nothing new that he would raise in the management of Joint Local Government Account, whether the procedure was followed…and it will be interesting for us as legislators of CRS to see how far he can go and whether the court will say anything new from what we know as being the position. Then, finally, within the provisions of the Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, I think, section 121-126, it has dealt with what he is talking about and what we are talking about. It had dealt with the Public Account Committee (PAC) as provided for under section 125-126 of the Constitution and talks about that…
The PAC of the House of Assembly will receive petitions to respect of all public funds appropriated and then articulated in any financial year in the state. Now, if you are alleging that the LG account has been tampered with in a particular year; ok, first thing you need to do is to look at the LGs themselves, submit all their statement of income expenditure and their budget each year to the House of Assembly, every quarter. At the end of every quarter, the Public Account Committee is able to invite members of the public, NGOs, those who have petitions, those who are public managers of the fund, to compare whether what was appropriated in the LG law, what was released from Abuja is the same. It is now done and sent to the revenue court. As I speak to you, there are about 30-40 cases in the revenue court to deal with those issues. Now, when the revenue court in CRS is dealing with those issues, when the Public Account Committee of the House of Assembly come up with such a report, I expect them to look at those documents, rather than be too theoretical about…trying to play to the gallery by taking CRSG to court, that matter can remain in court until Ayade leaves office in 2023.
NH: What has the House of Assembly been doing to curb the menace that the challenge of waste management has been causing in the state capital?
SPEAKER: You are correct, the environment particularly is under a committee by a member of the House. But, you must understand that the challenge we are facing in Nigeria is that we are making laws, but, the institutions that manage these laws are not as strengthen, in terms of human capacity and in terms of funding. The weakness of the institution is not attributable to the weakness of the individual, it talks about the mental capacity, also talk about the capacity of the institution, not the human capacity. But, I am talking about the machineries that some government have to be able to.
So, what we have had, is the little bit…a tilt in the institutional memory of government, in the sense that you are finding a new Commissioner who has just come into place, a new permanent Secretary in place…And they are having a little bit of difficulty trying to understand the functioning. As a House, we have reacted by forming an ad hoc committee to deal on environment issues, and the committee has been moving and has been meeting with them. We've done the preliminary recommendations to the Governor; and as at Friday when the governor came back, certain actions have been taken, which includes that they should decentralise the waste management system and they are going for 'waste silos'; two extra waste silos out of Calabar: One in Odukpani and one in Akamkpa. And then try to compartmentalise waste management into smaller units, let it be like a business case for neighborhood. If you say a neighborhood of 100 houses and they find somebody who is not a contractor, but somebody who has a passion for waste management…
We are even talking of Sanitary Officers, retired… They are people who take it as their responsibility. So, once we do, we are able to aggregate them. At that level, we will deal with movement of those items. Because, first if we can move those waste into particular location within a neighbourhood, it's easy for the trucks to carry them. We are working on that: But what we take to minds is that, we are actually coming to the end of history of this strategy of waste management. We are getting to the point where…and the truth is that Our population is increasing, such that the strategy we are putting in place is becoming weaker and weaker by the day. People are coming, move new houses are… They need to do more mapography of these persons who are leaving in those neighborhood. And then in CRS the kind of food that we consume gives us most waste byproduct net…more of a plantation economy to agricultural products then.
Now we have corn over the place, we have Banana pills, those are things we would not find in certain places of the north or other parts of this country, but in CR we have them. So, there are peculiar waste products most of which can turn into manure, most can be recycled. So, we are beginning to look at beyond government collecting waste. We are looking at issues where we even have to privatise some of the things for private companies to collect waste, and collect some small levies and fees from people living within neighborhood no matter how small, let it be like somebody is sacrificing to get that thing done. Let a young man, who has studied environmental science comes back and feel that in this neighborhood, there are a hundred houses, if I collect N1,000 from them, I can get a N100,000. I will take responsibility to carry this waste and speak with the people within the neighborhood and he has their consent and get the approval of government and get into such business. That's the future of what we are looking at. But for now, our responsibility is to ensure…The governor has ,already in our Executive session,resolve that within the next one week the current waste situation considered to be bad will be cleared off. Then this strategy has to be in place.
We need to begin to build capacity of people who should have interest. It should no longer be a contract business to carry waste. It should be something of passion. Like I said, I don't see why somebody who leaves in Ikot Ansa, is going to Calabar South to carry waste. That is, if somebody who lives in Calabar South within that neighborhood has an interest and he can clean it up, because the waste is a little bit difficult for us because it has to do with hygiene. It has to do with health, deals with epidemic, pandemic, disease we have the value chain of destruction that the it can bring along side; so, we are concerned as a House and we are talking with the Executive so that we end…
NH: Are you aware that the office of the Executive Secretary of CUDA and the Commissioner for Environment are having contentions going on between them? And that is impacting on the management of waste?
SPEAKER: I am aware. We are trying to… I won't call it a power struggle. That's why I said there is a gap caused by the lack of an institutional memory. Ok, you are having a new Ministry with…We have more ministries…You know the governor's idea was to compartmentalize government beyond the Keynesian theory and make government into smaller unit. Let's have a small office of a commissioner even with his laptop without an office, a visual office, but is able to deliver service. For instance, Commissioner for Social Welfare, for Gas Development…those are not convoy driving Commissioners with a big office or…They don't need a Permanent Secretary to function. Just a small office, you can get a young boy as Commissioner for ICT and he is just running under one small office space and his laptop is able to deliver services. That's the governor's concept; but that concept has not worked when you place it in a civil service mentality and a civil service oriented environment (NH: 'bureaucratic bottlenecks') that is where the governor is having a lot of difficulties. We must bear with him and understand his policies in that word.
What Sen. Ayade want to see, he wants to see 28 Commissioners with smaller units of responsibility but able to deliver 100% on that responsibility. So, it's working in several areas; but there are some areas that it's not working as we say. So, environment is one of them. The House Committee has already held about two meetings, there was one today, with the Commissioner for Environment and CUDA. Because we know, that relationship management strategy is not put in place well. Now, you see the grasses are growing more, they used to clear within two weeks but now even 3 weeks and even one month… not cleared and so that will be there. I want to urge members of the public to bear with government. It's something… You know in administrative management, when there is issue of change management, there you begin to find some empty space in between that… Our responsibility is to come up with strategy to fill up all those places.
NH: How is the House of Assembly responding to the Nko/Mkpani Communal Crisis?
SPEAKER: Well, in my first tenure as Chairman House Committee on Interstate & Internal Boundaries, I was able to deal with a lot of situation. First, the Nko/Oyeadama crisis is a mother crisis that has given birth to a lot of other things, the value chain…
They have ancient boundaries, they have primary boundaries and also boundaries as a result of Commission of inquiries and white papers of government. What we recommended in that Committee is for government to use the political will to implement the positions of those white papers and which is what was presented to the Governor. The House Committee has done a memo to the Government in respect of that and we have to deal with that issue, as quickly as possible.
Of course, we can't move to the field now that there is crisis, but find are trying to get the security agents. Once that is done, they have to demarcate the boundary line on the old existing boundary line at that point.
Two strategy: either they demarcate the boundary line on the old existing boundary or buffer zone, separating the communities. That will be dealt with.
Now, if you deal with that, Mkpani and Nko won't have… I think what happened is a spill over: suspicion… Somebody was killed from here and all of that. And a reaction. And we are not at the best stage of conflict management in our generation because we have a lot of youths who are very engaged, very strategic, very agile, a lot of them who are very easily provoked to anger. So, they no longer wait for the system to react, they react, they take street justice and circumstantial justice. They feel that this has happened and it's wrong and justice must be done. And so, we have to deal with those issues at that…
For the Adadama crisis it is understandable. We are talking about the crux of the boundary between CRS and Ebonyi State which I don't expect the communities to get involved. In my opinion, it's simple: if Ebonyi State was created out of Imo State in 1996 and CRS was not part of that creation, CR had its boundary, Imo state had a boundary with CRS, Ebonyi state that was extracted out of Imo state should naturally inherit the boundary that Imo state has with CRS, not to try to create a new boundary line that Adadama, that is not a LG in Ebonyi state and is not a community in Ebonyi state. Adadama first is a community, it's made up of a family, it's made up of a community and then is in Abi LG and is in CRS. If you look at the provisions of the Constitution…
All the numbers of LG are all provided for. It is the boundary of the LG that forms the boundary of the state. Abi LG boundary is the boundary of CRS with Ebonyi State. When Ebonyi State begins to contend boundary with Adadama, as if Adadama is a community in Ebonyi State, they are engaging in an exercise… It's a mental confusion, so to say, and then it doesn't make any sense in terms of law and logic. So, what the Adadama people are talking about is the boundary between the old Eastern State and what you have as the current South South States is the Jijishud boundary of 1920. Jijishud was a colonial officer. And so, that boundary is the boundary that was inherited by the eastern state when all of us were under East. Now, when they decide to create CRS from the eastern state, that boundary was used; that's why CR… That's why Itigidi, Ekureku and Adadama which are Agbo speaking communities but are located in that line of Jijishud boundary where demarcated and taken to CRS, because of their cultural homogeneity, their language and then the land mass. Now that 120km gives them the buffer where the communities have lived and all that.
Since 1920, the Ebonyi people have not crossed that boundary line since 1920. They are still living within that line. In 2016, for people to now come and want to create a different boundary line, not minding that there is a community called Adadama, there's a LG, Abi where they come from and a state government like CRS where they come from is not acceptable. And that's why we have tried as much as possible as a government to put this to Ebonyi state government, our sister that trying to forment trouble cause war and kill people will not deter people from living in that land. If you kill them, the next generation will come back; it will get to a point where probably you are going to have a young Hitler that will come out of that place. And it's true.
So, the better thing is for people to just forget about this Abrahamic, what I call Adamistic mentality to eliminate people from their environment. They won't run away, you will meet them there; there are Kikolosis, so we just need to deal with the issues go back, let Ebonyi state take responsibility of its people, CRSG Takes responsibility of its people. Go back to the old boundary line. We need to create a buffer zone and allow them to live. I believe that Ebonyi state government under the current Governor is doing well in the boundary area. Prof. Ben Ayade has detailed the Deputy Governor who is doing excellently well in trying to resolve the crisis between Adadama.
NH: Thank you for the audience
SPEAKER: You are welcome.
Editor's Note:
The name, Jijishud, as it appears in the Speaker's response above, may have been erroneously spelt.
Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger & the Editor of Negroid Haven