Constituency Project: How lawmakers pad budgets
21 years after senators and members of the House of Representatives forced the Executive to insert Special Intervention Projects (SIP), known as constituency projects, into the budget, it has been one problem after the other every year. Constituency projects, which have a yearly budget of N100 billion, were established by the Obasanjo administration with the hope of bringing government closer to the people, especially those in the rural areas, just as it was not designed for lawmakers to determine directly what projects should go to their constituents or to be the ones who should provide contractors. With this in mind,…