The deputy speaker, House of Representatives, Hon Benjamin Kalu said the National Assembly will soon launch an application known as ‘NASS Eyes’ to monitor budget transparency and implementation by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
According to him, the monitoring will also include, adherence to the principle of federal character by the affected MDAs.
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The deputy speaker disclosed this during a courtesy call on him by the management team of AFRILABS, a high-tech company, over the weekend.
Kalu, in a statement by his chief press secretary, Levinus Nwabughiogu, said the mechanism is driven by the conscious effort of the legislature to effectively check the performance of budgetary allocations to the agencies of government.
He said the House will employ the application in its oversight functions so that lawmakers can be in their offices, heading their committees, and also monitoring what is happening in various MDAs.
The presiding officer said with the innovation, the House’s oversight functions will not only be based on the bundles of papers submitted to members when they visit the MDAs, but on a continuous analysis of what they are doing day in and day out.
“A dashboard that is in the Parliament to see what is being captured in the MDAs will inform members of the Parliament better, so by the time they visit it, they will have gotten sufficient information that would help them oversee tax payers money more efficiently. It is something we must think about.
“We are thinking in that direction, and we are about to launch what we call the ‘NASS EYES’, the eyes that will be beaming the MDAs while they are working. They will be expected to upload some of the key performance indicators that we will give them.
“From there, we will analyze and have a better understanding of their budget performance, even before budget presentations, because some of them come for budget performance presentations and it is rushed; within a few hours, it is done. That is not well detailed!
“We need innovations; we need technology to drive that, so that we can dig and get beyond the paper work you have done. Also in budgeting, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, innovations and technology will help us to know whether the NEEDS analysis are critical and are part of the budget, not somebody sitting in the office here in Abuja and be imputing anything they want into the budget when they have no social economic impacts on the lives of the people that the budget is meant for,” he said.
Kalu also stressed the need for the deployment of technology in the oversight functions of the parliament, saying it would not only gauge the efforts of the government agencies but also give the needed boost to E-Parliament for the overall benefits of the people.