Politics-Nigeria - The Minority leader of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Suleiman Kawu (ANPP Sumaila/Takai Federal Constituency) has blamed poor implementation of budgets on inexperience of members and poor leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) -led Federal Government. In this chat with Vanguard, Kawu also said that Nigerian leaders were using religious and tribal divides to loot the treasury. Excerpts: Could you assess the level of budget implementation in 2010?

In my constituency, it is 75 - 80 percent while at the federal level, it is 50 percent. But the secret of this success in my constituency is that most of the time, I jettison ego as a principal member of the House and move from desk to desk in the federal ministries and agencies to make sure that what is earmarked for Sumaila/Takai or for Kano State goes to Kano State.

Let me cite the case of the Hadeija/Jama'are River Basin Authority to you, we have so many projects there. I make sure that every week I visit their office here in Kano and also contact them on phone. Now I have almost 380 hand pumps in my constituency; I have more than 40 solar powered boreholes too. Therefore, I can confidently say the level of implementation of the budget in my constituency is up to 75 percent for now.

I am still waiting for the Federal Ministry of Education to respond to projects like IT centre, library, some books and computers. If they can put this on ground for me, I can say I have achieved 95 percent of 2010 budget implementation in my constituency.

Why is the level of budget implementation of the 2010 budget at the federal level low?

It is due to the failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a government and we can also blame the inexperience of some of our members for the non_implementation of the budget. A member of the National Assembly must wake up; he has to forget that he is a National Assembly member and see himself as a representative and servant of his constituents.

He should not feel arrogant,he should be humble enough to go to wherever he needs to go to bring development to his people. I know in some of these places, you would be humiliated, frustrated and even insulted, but a representative worth his salt should keep moving and he would get the results. But actually, poor implementation of our budget is due to the lack of focus of the PDP-led Federal Government.

Couldn't it be traced to inadequate funds to implement the budget?

Yes, it is true that Nigeria is broke. For instance, if you look at the 2011 budget, you would discover that the story is pathetic because what we can afford as a nation to service the budget is not up to 40 percent of the budget. The bulk of the money is to be sourced through borrowings. This is another area of concern and it is a very serious challenge ahead of us because we cannot fund 40 percent of our 2011 budget. Even the 40 percent that can be funded falls within the recurrent expenditure range. In other words, we may even have to borrow money either internally or externally to fund our recurrent expenditure too.

Even with the increase in oil price which is in the region of $100 per barrel?

This is our argument in the National Assembly. We keep asking the executive arm where the money is? When you go and look into our federal reserve, it is down; we are in a serious mess. For instance, we say let the oil benchmark be $65 per barrel and now we are selling it at $100 but even as it is, the Federal Government cannot finance up to 50 percent of the budget. There must be a problem somewhere.

Could it be that the money must have gone down the drain or stolen?

Even if the money is stolen, it has to be stolen through the appropriate channel. If I may ask, what is the channel? This government lacks focus; it is not serious because we have a very inexperienced president who is not exposed to national politics. For instance, he engaged a finance minister who doesn't know about the financial trend in this country. The way you approach the finances of Nigeria is different from that of the UK and therefore the president should have engaged somebody who is living in Nigeria; someone who knows the Nigerian terrain so well and how to solve Nigeria 's problem. But we have a finance minister who was out of Nigeria for almost 20 years.

It is unfortunate today that the level of poverty in the country is growing in geometric progression.

It is wrong to say we are buoyant. We have tasted the PDP for 12 years now, what is left is to organize all the progressive forces in Nigeria to get rid of this monster called the PDP and its government.

Let me paint a true picture of the problem at hand, the primary school population now is almost 15 - 18 million, each year now, we graduate 1.3 million to 1.5 million graduates from our universities spread across the country. The federal civil service does not boast of a population of up to one million people and yet you can see the way we are going. We are in a very serious mess. Unless the progressives take over this country, unless we make governance less lucrative, we would be in deep trouble in Nigeria.

We should stop tribal and religious politics because those in government are using it to loot the treasury and further pauperize the populace. How many people in Nigeria can afford three square meals a day? Each time I come to Kano , I attend to people from morning till the end of the day who keep talking about personal challenges and I have no choice than to believe them.

What informed your decision to establish constituency projects in your area?

Actually it is for two reasons: first it is my responsibility to make sure I attend to their needs like education, youth empowerment, health, water supply, electricity and other basic amenities which our people are earnestly asking for. That is why I joined my hands with the leadership of the House of Representatives and some members of the executives to make sure I facilitated visible projects that would impact on the lives of my people.

At the same time,I must express the concern of the executive Governor of Kano State who actually come to my aid whenever I ask for it without which I couldn't have been able to achieve what I set out to achieve. For example when you go to the youth empowerment scheme, you would observe that we got the land from the local government and the local government paid out the compensation to those affected in view of the fact that so many houses in Sumaila would be demolished soon.

The second reason is that actually I really want to thank my people because I came in 2003 barefooted, they gave me the benefit of doubt and voted for me. I did my best to protect their interest and to work within the limits allowed by law. I have been able to achieve a lot and they are respecting me for that.

In 2007, they again gave me a free ticket, I was returned unopposed and they came out en-masse and voted for me. even at the 2007 polls, I could not have enjoyed the support of my people if it was all about money because I didn't have the money. At that time, some of my colleagues were spending N10 to N20 million in the primary election but yet my people stood by me and ensured that I won the election in 2007.

Abdulsalam Muhammad

Vanguard