The immediate-past Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mr Patrick Giwa, speaks on some issues affecting the National Assembly and the controversial salaries lawmakers receive, in this interview with Ben Ogbemudia
What is the work of a clerk and how has it been all these years?
The work of the clerk is to support the Speaker of the House. The clerk is the administrative head of the House and he is in charge of all the activities and ensures staff compliance to duty. He prepares the chamber where they sit and makes sure that all the relevant documents are ready and available, the agenda of the day is ready and circulated to members.
The process of getting the order paper ready is a serious job itself, this order paper is derived from what they call noticed paper. This paper is a notice of what the house will be dealing with for a week. So, all the motions that are to come in a week are made available to members during that week, the notice paper comes out on Friday and every member has his/her own sent to their various offices.
It is from that notice paper that the item will come up at the chamber on the days of sitting they are lifted, except some urgent measures come up. Otherwise as much as possible, those notice papers are followed strictly to make sure there is orderliness, fairness, and proper monitoring pursuit in the chamber.
So, those are the work of the Clerk. The Clerk advises the Speaker on rules guiding us in the seating and outside the seating and if there is a need to draw the attention of Mr. Speaker or any member if the leadership pertains to issues that have to do with legislative work.
The Clerk formally raises it to their attention. The Clerk oversees the staff, the immediate staff are the staffs taking notes of procedures, who take notes of what transpires in the chamber, and then the entire staff who perform one work or the other
While you were serving, did you advise any presiding or principal officer against taking action on certain matters?
There are many times I have advised the presiding officer. There was one issue that affected Edo when the state had a crisis with lawmakers and the National Assembly had to come in and created a committee to find out what was happening, what transpired, and the follow up to that was a motion that came up at the House to say that the National Assembly should take over the legislative duty in Edo State House of Assembly- that was in 2019. Normally before anybody brings up a motion in the House, you must send a notice to the Speaker and it takes two days before that motion will come up.
Motion is meant to be published in a schedule of motions and that should have taken some days. But in our system because of our way of doing things, people bring motions a few minutes before sitting and they will tell you that the Speaker directed them to do it. And in that case, the Clerk has to confirm from the Speaker to be sure because politicians can do and push at any time. And as a Clerk, you have to confirm from the Speaker.
There was a day that the Director in charge of Rules and Business Department told me that the chairman have already approved it and it was about the matters affecting Edo State, so, he brought it to me to vet, at the point I was doing this vetting the Deputy Governor of Edo State came to my office and he said Clerk I understand there is motion coming up this morning and that motion, the Matter is already in court, you have to bundle this and I told him, I was not aware of that and I told him I will find out and he said okay. He didn’t know I was reading that same motion when I saw him.
The motion had got the approval of the Speaker that it had to be taken otherwise, he was insisting that the matter is in court. I said I will ask him and when I looked at the motion, I discovered it was very controversial and sensitive and the time was very short to seek Speakers’ approval. Meanwhile, even if the Speaker approved it, it was too late to even change and put in a new one.
And I got directed, but normally if such motions are not controversial, they will simply tell me the speaker has directed, even if it’s too close to chamber’s time and I see that it is not controversial, maybe one person motion, people do but when it is controversial it must seek the Speaker’s approval.
For that reason, I directed that motion be dropped. I think it was sponsored by Peter Akpatason and Julius Ihonvbere. So, I directed that the motion should be dropped. Not because of what the Deputy Speaker established, but because I have not asked for the approval of the Speaker. Mr Speaker has to see every motion that comes to the floor of the House and get his approval. When I did, immediately the Speaker got to the chamber, I told him I didn’t see any approval from you that this motion should be taken and he laughed. He appreciated what I did and in any case.
The speaker can accommodate anything at any time and that is the duty of the Clerk. So, later that day, the people that sponsored the motion, if not that Professor Ihonvbere was my brother, he would have taken against me, but Akpatason took offense for a very long time and told me I was biased. I told him I’m a Clerk and I have to do my work.
The speaker told me, yes you have done your work, but there are ways to go against it. There are times very delicate thing comes up in the chamber, I give the speaker advice, such advice are very important. Once a Clerk knows what he is doing, he advises the Speaker from time to time. The essence is to guide him and for the rules not to be spotted
What happened to the N37bn approved for the renovation of the National Assembly complex?
Well, I wouldn’t know what happened as of now. But I am concerned about the state of despair, particularly, in the Chambers where the roof could drop at any time. It was based on that request was made and provision was made in the 2019 budget.
What people don’t know is that National Assembly is not in charge of the maintenance of the National Assembly complex, it is the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) that is in charge of many government institutions, one of which is the National Assembly. The fund in question was domiciled in the FCDA and I remember on one or two occasions, that I was in a delegation that met with the FCDA on how the work should commence because of the serious dilapidated nature of the National Assembly.
I also attended a few meetings where the National Assembly was called to come up with a committee with the National Assembly leadership to decide how the work will be carried out until I left there, nothing has happened. I am surprised that until now the renovation has not commenced.
It was reported that President Muhammadu Buhari approved N37bn, how much was released to the FCDA?
Well, I cannot say how much and I wouldn’t know even if they were released. However, I am surprised that the government will not use the money for something very serious.
There are issues about the legislative aides and management funds that were approved for DTA and so many others. Why are these funds not allocated and why will the legislative staff suffer for it?
I will not be able to give the exact reasons for the welfare of the staff. My function was strictly restricted to the House of Reps. Those issues were issues of the management of the National Assembly and the Human Resource Department and of course the Account Department that handles such matters. And clearly, such matters were not directed to the chamber.
The issue is very complicated. Some of the aides are not entitled to what they claimed. But at some times, it is not all they claim that they are entitled to. For over 10 years now, the budget of the National Assembly has not changed, the staff compensation is increasing people’s level is expanding. There was a time when directors were at the highest and they were heading the chambers. But now, I’m sure we have more than 10 permanent secretaries in the
National Assembly. The office has expanded so much and the understanding of the people also. In public service, when the staff is increasing, you expand the budget to be able to carry the expansion but where there is an expansion in the National Assembly, but people in media are not updated about that, there is a need to strengthen certain areas of the legislative work because normally they should be backed up by funding then this idea that the National Assembly has so much money or are spending so much money is a misplacement.
The National Assembly needs proper funding that is why you have so many problems. Legislative aides are not getting what they are supposed to get because of the nature of funding. I just told you that by the time I left the House, records from the staff audit show that the National Assembly staff had moved from less than a thousand to more than 4,000.
By the time I did the Audit that was around 2017/2019 by now it should be like 5,000 because recently there was recruitment and all that. So, these are the issues and I know that if the National Assembly had the money, they would not waste their time.
Why is it not possible for the principal aides and legislative aides to get their salaries directly?
I am unaware that some members or members of the staff collect the salaries of staff and their legislative aides, but if you talk about people using their relations, even in other countries, you hear people using their children as their aides but they have to be qualified, there are rules and regulations.
There are minimum qualifications that are set out which the National Assembly commission and the management of the National assembly adhere to very strictly, there is no way you can engage people who are not qualified as Aides but if an Aides of a member say the job should be done better, the rule is not against it but even as that, I cannot tell of any member that had a situation like that.
In the area of constituencies, how do you monitor that the right staff is there?
In the recruitment procedure for constituencies, the same procedures for its members in the National Assembly premises, every one of them is expected to come to the headquarters for documentation, so there is no way anybody will recruit anyone who is not qualified even as its interest.
How is the monitoring done?
Documentation is there, photographs are there, and also remember that this used to be an auditing process from National Assembly personal Audit and Financial audit.
Do they travel to all these constituency offices outside Abuja?
Yes, they do, members who go to the general office also go to make sure that the offices are on the ground and also the staff is on the ground
Are there members who have been found wanting?
I’m not aware of that, but definitely, some people must have been found. In a system like that, you cannot be 100 per cent compliant there will be people who will not have all the requirements and the rest is possible categorically to that. By and large, I know that members have constituencies, they have various offices and they have required staff within their constituencies. There are serious audit processes that the government has put in place to make sure that those constituencies are on the ground and the staff is on the ground.
What is the salary of an average honourable member?
Members’ salaries and allowances range from N800, 000 a month. There is nothing like N27million, but the government approved certain allowances for the upkeep of the running of their offices, they are called vulnerable courses not salaries and I cannot remember figures now, but they cannot be more than N7 or N8 million a month. It is not for the members but their offices, for the running of their offices
So, how do they retire the money
There is a serious accountability process, there is no government fund that is at the disposal of anybody. Members must make sure they retire any money given to them before, so once they retire, it is through an established process they retire. As a clerk, any discrepancies don’t come to us, those are financial matters, and they go through the secretary in charge of the finance. I am not aware of any that have refused to retire, matters like that don’t come to
During the tenure of a former Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, members complained of being given fairly used vehicles, while a few said they were not given official vehicles, how was that matter resolved?
Any member that said he didn’t get a vehicle is not true, those vehicles were purchased for the running of the politics and they never had access to them during the period they were in office to carry out their legislative functions.
That was also the approval of the leadership in politics and also the financial system of the country and they left, the government gave to the members, is not that the national assembly bought vehicles and gave it to members, the vehicles were bought for the politics but the operation of the communities and members had access to that through their own but I’m not aware of any member that did not get his vehicle.
Is the National Assembly corrupt?
The problem is that in every Nigeria, if you watch the television now, I see people stand up to condemn everybody and never condemn themselves but an average Nigerian on the street from the President to everybody is corrupt they never see their problem.
I went to the market to buy a shoe and when I put my leg inside, it was so tight and the seller was insisting that it will expand with time and I said no I am the one wearing the shoe it is not my size.
Everything they are doing is right but any other person is wrong. National Assembly is such an exposed institution and everybody look up to National Assembly and I tell you there is nothing in the National Assembly to take and by the time we disburse everything we need to disburse in the month, in the next few minutes, the money is not enough, once they have disbursed money to staff, members and politics and then staff salaries nothing is remaining it are as bad as that.
So, I cannot tell you that the National Assembly is corrupt because there is nothing there to take. When compared with other arms of government, the National Assembly does not have money.
What is your opinion about the controversial VAT matter between the Federal Inland Revenue Services and the state government that is also before the National Assembly
When any matter becomes controversial just like the VAT issue, the best thing is to go to court. The problem we have now is that we have our representatives and when it is time to stand up for their people they won’t do it. That is what we have discovered that the time our representatives from all over the country would be expected to stand for their people they will not do it.
Those who are for and against, they have their people, they have their members in the senate. We expect them to stand up for what is right for what is fair, for what is justice able, and if it comes to National Assembly deciding for it. We hope that at the end of the day Nigerians should be better with a decision that will be in their interest.
