June 22, 201
One would have expected the National Assembly to be happy as a result of the decision of the Acting President to approach the Supreme Court on the seeming sharp disagreement between it and the Presidency over the 2017 budget. Unfortunately, the NASS is once again playing true to the colour it has maintained since its inauguration which is imbued in corruption, mischief, treachery, constant time-wasting, distractions and inanities. These are the brightest attributes of the 8th National Assembly which have continually put governance in the country in a state of disequilibrium since 2015.
This is why the NASS cannot be see the significance of the dialectic step taken by the Acting President to approach the Supreme Court for judicial clarifications on the unnecessary disagreement over which arm of government has power over the input of projects in the budget between it and the Executive. The shenanigans in NASS have demonstrated adequately that they prefer media grandstanding and engaging in trivialities/pettiness than to lawfully defend its positions, an attitude that has invariably been fundamentally distractive in nature as far as providing governance is concerned.
Many melodramatics that has been orchestrated by the present NASS since its inauguration; these includes how they mobilized themselves in embarrassingly large numbers to queue behind an individual that till the moment has not proven his innocence over the corruption charges hanging round his neck.
The strange term ‘budget-padding’ also came into our national lexicon within the life span of the present NASS and it is the Assembly that have brazenly utilized different crooked means of causing confusion to achieve the bid to shield its members from scrutiny and prosecution over a plethora of corruption cases while tactically escaping the jaws of justice.
Corrupt elements are never comfortable with abiding with the rule of law, transparency, public accountability and probity and that is what is fundamental about this unnecessary ‘confusion’. This may be why the NASS is feeling disgruntled that Acting President have sought judicial clarification on the imbroglio, because ordinarily that is the best and quickest option to resolve any ‘confusion’ over the budget if indeed there is any. Those that want to come to equity necessarily must come with clean hands, thus it is in subjecting and submitting themselves absolutely to the constitution of the country that the Executive and the Legislature can operate legitimately.
While the constitution clearly stipulates and provides for separations of powers among the three arms of government to guarantee their individual independence, the buck actually stops at the Presidency which resides in the Executive arm. That reality alone speaks volumes about which arm takes ultimate responsibility in any process of decision making in government and in governance.
The Acting President has made the right decision which will save the country from the usual ‘slowing down’ of the pace of governance attitude that the 8th NASS apparently has adopted thus far. The budget 2017 should have entered the implementation phase months before now and the negative impacts of the delay are further ruining the economy. This is what is important and this is why the Acting President is right in approaching the supreme court for judicial clarifications to short-cut the traditional time-wasting ways of NASS in order for the budget to be implemented to achieve some level of succor for the citizenry as the country battles the subsisting biting economic recession.
A pronouncement by the Supreme Court would finally put the seeming disagreement to rest not just for the sake of the present but for the sake of the future. The Supreme Court must of course treat the case in a very expeditious manner given that the stage of commencing implementation is long overdue, a situation that represents more excruciating pains for the vast majority.
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