Reps want govt officials who seek treatment abroad jailed seven years

A mild drama yesterday ensued at plenary in the House of Representatives during the debate on a bill seeking seven years jail term or a fine of N500 million or both for public officers who seek medical treatment abroad at public expensive.

A member of the House, Ibrahim Isiaka(APC-Ogun) who seconded the motion for second reading of the bill, later withdrew the motion, sensing controversies in the debate.

The proposed piece of legislation is essentially an amendment to an existing Act of the National Assembly.

Titled “A Bill for an Act to Amend the National Health Act, 2014; and for Related Matters (HB. 1611)” the bill is sponsored by Sergius Ogun, who represents Esan North and Esan South East federal Constituency of Edo State.

Hardly had Ogun offered the synopsis in the lead debate of the bill than Isiaka raised a point of order on personal privilege, saying he was withdrawing his motion.

He said: “Thank you, Mr speaker for granting me this special privilege. I regret to withdraw my secondment to the bill moved by Serguis Ogun.

“Mr Speaker, colleagues, what I heard is quite different from what he is postulating because of that, Mr. Speaker, before it is thrown open for further debate or before you rule, I withdraw my secondment, Mr. Speaker.”.

This was, however, novel to the House and therefore a surprise to many members as no one in the history of the parliament has ever done that.

Though his reason for withdrawing the second motion was not understandably explicit, the lawmaker, however, left a subtle feverish feelings that the bill was against the House and would in earnest, when passed into law, stop most members from embarking on medical tourism abroad.

The withdrawal caused some laughter in the chambers.

Sadly, the Deputy Speaker, Idris Wase, who presided over the plenary in his ruling, said their law did not have any provision for withholding his motion.

“Well, Isiaka, I regret also from the chair to tell you that once you second a motion, there is no provision in our law for you to withdraw. Thank you very much”, Wase ruled, hitting the gavel.

Earlier in his lead debate on the general principles of the bill, Ogun said he was not making a new proposal but an amendment to an extant law passed by the national assembly stopping public officers to seeking medical treatment on the account of tax payers money.

He however said that the law did not provide for any form of punishment hence the amendment.

He added that the new bill prescribed 7 years jail term, an option of N500 million or both as punishment.

The lawmaker said: “The objective of this bill is to amend the principle act so as to make provisions for sanctions against any public officer who violates the provision of that act especially section 46 of the act, that provides that without prejudice to the rights of any Nigerian that seeks medical attention abroad, investigation or treatment anywhere within in and outside Nigeria, no public officer of the government of the Federation or any part thereof shall be sponsored for medical check up, investigation or treatment abroad, at public expense except in exceptional cases on the recommendation and referral by the medical board whose recommendation and referral shall be duly approved by the minister or commissioner of the state as the case maybe.

“Mr speaker, this is the act as passed by the National Assembly in 2014.”

At this juncture, Wase surprisingly retorted “This assembly made a provision that no body should travel for medical attention?”

Responding, Ogun said “I read the Act and the gazette is here. I wasn’t in this assembly then. This is the law today. So what I am basically doing with my amendment is saying that there should be punishment which the Act did not capture.

“The amendment is in section 1 which says any public officer of the government of the federation or any part thereof, who violates the provision of section 1 above shall be guilty of an offense and liable on conviction to a fine of N500m or an imprisonment term of 7 years.

“I am only trying to cure the defect in the law because there is no punishment for flouting it. That’s basically what has brought it, let alone the decay in our health institutions or the capital flight. There is an Act but no punishment for violating the act. There is no sanction”.

Contributing to the debate, the Deputy Minority Leader of the House, Toby Okechukwu, said the bill, when passed into law, will check the capital flight from Nigeria on the account of medical trips by public officers and give boost to the fixing of the country’s health sector.

Similarly, Tajudeen J. Yusuf (PDP, Kogi) also asked members to support the bill on its merit.

“I have gone through this proposed bill and it’s very clear that there is an Act of the National Assembly that made this an offence already. This bill is not seeking to initiate that. What it is doing is an amendment to an existing Act that there is a gap. That Act does not proffer punishment for those who flout an existing Act. So, what it’s bringing is an amendment to an Act.

“Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal that what we should do is to look at the amendment. An Act says something is wrong but there is no punishment. The essence of the parliament is to look at the shortcomings in our laws and fill it.

”Mr. speaker, dear colleagues, I appeal to us to consider the bill on its merit. It’s an amendment, ” Yusuf said.

The bill, when eventually put to voice vote, received massive support of the “yea” sayers, outweighing that of the “nay” sayers.

It was later adopted for second reading.