| dc.description.abstract | There is a global trend towards greater openness in parliamentary system of government. This is based on the belief of the legislative oversight functions in ensuring accountability of the government. Since the dawn of the 4th republic in 1999, the Nigerian parliament had enacted new laws and amended some other existing laws to address the issues of bad governance, wastage in governmental budgets and appropriations and leakage of the public funds. However constant experiences have shown that despites these efforts, the government has failed to deliver the much needed dividends of democracy to the people. Therefore, the task of achieving fiscal discipline in government remains a continuing project by all stakeholders, particularly the National Assembly. It has been established that parliaments all over the world can do little in their full plenary sessions in their quest of addressing the yearnings of the people, hence the adoption of committee system for the purpose of detailed treatment of issues within legislature competence. Therefore, this study examined the legislative committee system with reference to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the 9th Nigeria’s National Assembly in line with international best practice.
The study adopted a research design which aims at assessing the public and legislative perspectives on the functions of PAC and its effectiveness. The study sampled a total of 415 respondents; where15 legislative-members were purposively sampled and 400 public members were randomly sampled in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC). Data were collected through well-structured questionnaire and interview-guide and were analyzed using Excel, Nvivo and SPSS analysis packages. The study employed narrative analysis, content analysis and descriptive analysis methodologies to analyze the study respondents’ perceptions.
The empirical findings from the descriptive analysis revealed that public-members are fully aware of legislative committee system particularly the existence of PAC in the National Assembly and how it functions. The descriptive analysis also revealed that public members’ accessibility to the Committee is poor. The study further established that PAC of the 9th National Assembly is poorly effective with specific negligence to making defaulted public-agencies responsible, evaluating budget-implementation by public agencies in relation to approved plan and the post impression of the Committee to a rubber-stamp. Among other challenges, the study identified inability to prompt response from the Agencies, Ministries and Parastatals; Inadequate funding of PAC; delayed submission of Audit Report by the Auditor General for the Federation; Backlog of audit reports; inadequate working space for storage of documents, Poor Facilities; inadequate staff capacity, corruption and many more as major factors hampering the effectiveness of the Committee.
Thus, the study recommended that the Committees should enhance public accessibility and preserve their independence, being non-partisan (without political influence) as well as maintain transparency, in order to maintain efficiency and the effective evaluation, collection and accounting of the public fund and the adequacy and effectiveness of protecting property from loss, damage and misuse. The study also recommends continuous training of PAC members and supporting staff. | en_US |
