By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN CITY — A member of the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Patrick Obahiagbon, has described as unacceptable, the alleged plan by the Federal Government not to consult lawmakers when siting constituency projects in their areas.

The lawmaker, who represents Oredo Federal Constituency in the House, also frowned at the allegations levelled against lawmakers as regards funds for constituency projects, arguing that it would be unfair for the executive to relegate lawmakers when siting projects in their areas, since the lawmakers are representatives of their people, who according to him, are conversant with the problems of their people.

“There is always a dingdong battle between parliament and executive as to how legitimate it is, for members of the National Assembly to influence budget proposal of the Federal Government. The executive has not been comfortable with that but we say, no, because budgets are not budgets until they are passed by the National Assembly.

What you bring to the National Assembly are mere budgetary proposal and if the constitution says we have a right to pass the budget, that means we also have a right to say we want projects sited in our areas because we represent our people.

“You cannot sit down there in the Villa to say you know what the people of Umekpen or what the people of Iriri need,  like the executive has always insisted. So it is a mark of executive arrogance and we are not prepared to be party to it.

So beyond influencing the citation of projects in our constituency, we do not know any thing beyond that,” he said.

As regards the misappropriation of constituency funds by lawmakers, Obahiagbon said,  “saying that is borne out of ignorance as to the modus oparandum of constituency projects.

Let me say again for the umpteenth time that members of the National Assembly do not get money for constituency projects. And they do not even know who the contractors are.

“Our business is to engage in the politics of budget and resource control within the metric of Federal Government budgetary provisions to ensure that we succeed in influencing certain projects to our constituency. And once we are able to get that in the federal budget, that is all we know about it.

Not until the projects are awarded to the contractors, I do not even know who the contractors are. It is not the business of the National Assembly to nominate contractors to execute the projects. That is strictly an executive responsibility,” he said.