Americans call it ‘Pork Barrel’, what Nigerians call ‘Padding’ | 5 reasons why Speaker Dogara is right

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara stated quite clearly on Thursday that no member of the hallowed chambers can be investigated or prosecuted for ‘budget padding’ despite the many allegations of the displaced Chairman of the Appropriations Comittee, Abdulmumin Jibrin.

As braggadocios as Dogara’s insistence that neither he nor any member of the House of Reps can be prosecuted might sound, the Speaker is constitutionally upright on this one.

The trend of the legislative arm tinkering with a budget presented by the executive arm of government is not just a worldwide thing, it is also the standard process in any part of the democratic world.

Here are 5 reasons why Dogara is right about this one.

  1. Nigerians call it ‘padding’…Americans call it ‘pork barrel’

What Jibrin has numerous times declared as the ‘padding’ of the 2016 budget is the allocation of funds by the different standing committees in House of Reps for purposed projects in lawmakers’ constituencies.

According to Wikipedia, “Pork barrel is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative’s district.”

See the difference? While Nigerians call it padding, Americans call it pork barrel.

2. ‘Padding’ is a budget allocation mechanism

Against his cries of criminality in the allocation of projects by whistle-blower Jibrin, it appears the lawmaker is not aware that ‘padding’ is actually a world recognized system of budget allocation.

According to Machiko Tsubura of the University of Sussex, “Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is a government budget allocation mechanism that channels a specific portion of the national budget to the constituencies of Members of Parliament (MPs) to finance development projects.”

‘Padding’ just happens to be legal in Europe!

3. ‘Padding’ is a constitutional right

Dogara’s reason for declaring he cannot be touched over the budget padding row is simple; the so-called ‘padding’ of the budget is a constitutionally granted power of the legislative arm of government

It’s safe to say this is one battle the speaker picked to fight wisely since he is backed by the almighty constitution of the nation.

4. He meant Jesse Jackson probably

Dogara said, “Even in the US, one of the requirements for reelection is for you to attract federal presence back to your constituency. A senator brought an airport to his district and just for that he has been elected over three times.”

It is a known fact that Jesse Jackson Jnr did push for a third airport in Chicago during his time at the Congress.

Speaker Dogara did his research well!

5. Another example should do

“The minister perhaps comes from a particular region and you will see up to 60, 70 percent of that ministry’s funds go to that place and in furtherance of our responsibility and duties as representatives of the people, you want to attract projects to those people.”- Dogara

From the above, it is obvious the Speaker implied that ‘padding’ is a political tool.

Just in case anyone is in doubt however, here is another example of a padding situation in the United States of America.

One of the most famous pork barrel situation is the Big Dig in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Big Dig was a project to relocate an existing 3.5-mile (5.6 km) section of the interstate highway system underground. The official planning phase started in 1982; the construction work was done between 1991 and 2006; and the project concluded on December 31, 2007.

It ended up costing US$14.6 billion, or over US$4 billion per mile. Tip O’Neill, had pushed for the Big Dig tunnels to be funded by the Federal Government while he was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

One of the Big Dig tunnels was named after him too!

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