Senate Bill To Regulate Foreign Aid Scales Second Reading

Jane Salihu

The Senate on Wednesday passed for second reading a bill seeking to regulate foreign aid, grants and donations to Nigeria to ensure transparency, accountability and effective coordination.

The bill seeks to establish a legal framework for the registration, disclosure and monitoring of foreign assistance received by federal, state and local governments, as well as non-governmental organisations.

Sponsor of the bill, Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe North), said Nigeria lacked a comprehensive law to coordinate and track foreign support despite its heavy reliance on donor funds for critical sectors such as health, education, agriculture and humanitarian interventions.

Dankwambo said the absence of a unified framework had led to fragmentation, duplication of projects and weak alignment of donor-funded programmes with national development priorities.

He argued that foreign aid, once received and utilised in the country, should be treated as public resource and subjected to legislative oversight by the National Assembly in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

According to him, although agencies such as the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget Office of the Federation, Debt Management Office and Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation play different roles in managing external assistance, there is no statutory mechanism compelling them to operate within a harmonised accountability framework.

The bill, he said, proposes the establishment of a National Donor Coordination Framework, mandatory registration of foreign aid programmes, creation of a central national database for donor-funded projects and integration of such interventions into national budgeting and development planning processes.

Contributing to the debate, Senator Adams Oshiomhole (Edo North) supported the bill, warning that foreign funding had, in some instances globally, been deployed to support activities capable of undermining national unity and security.

Oshiomhole stressed the need for strict enforcement and sanctions against organisations or individuals that fail to disclose foreign funding, saying Nigeria must protect its peace, stability and national interest.

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, commended Dankwambo for sponsoring the bill, describing the former Accountant-General of the Federation as well-equipped to reform the foreign aid management architecture given his experience in public finance.

Akpabio noted that Dankwambo’s background and knowledge of donor-funded programmes uniquely qualified him to initiate the legislation.

Following its passage for second reading, the bill was referred to the Senate Committees on National Planning and Economic Affairs, Finance and Foreign Affairs for further legislative work.

The committees are expected to report back within six weeks.