Jamboree of spree overheads (I)
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- Category: Philosofaith
- Written by M.U Ndagi
- Hits: 630
Media reports indicate that the past three weeks have been a jamboree of spree expenditures in ministries, departments and agencies of government. It has become an end of year rite in government establishments in Nigeria to empty public treasury before 12 midnight of December 31 every year; even if it would require doing it the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) way. The inconclusive subsidy probe exposed the fictious payments by PPPRA of N999 million 128 times within 24 hours to “unknown” oil companies; an act amazing enough to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records!
The past few weeks have been a “climate” of workshops, conferences and seminars in the name of capacity building (sorry please, “pocket-building”) at various ministries and agencies. Choice hotels in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and other state capitals have been playing host to several of such funny, “window-dressing”, and fund-looting workshops; with showy banners struggling for spaces at hotel entrances. Receipts for materials that were never purchased or for work never carried out have lately become henna decorating the hands of senior public officers.The desperation to pilfer billions of naira from public treasury within this period is revealed in the replication of the impromptu themes of workshops and conferences by government agencies; all in the frantic effort to exhaust all the monies provided in their 2012 budget estimates before the elapse of the fiscal year when government accounts will officially close. Did I hear you talk of returning unspent funds to the treasury? Ashah (Hausa expression to illustrate discontent)! That became a taboo soon after both Alhaji Hassan Lemu, Late Northern Premier (Sardauna)’s Principal Private Secretary (PPS) and Late Alhaji Muhammadu Jega (Private Secretary to the Premier 1963-64) retired from public service.
Recent events in the country suggest that President Jonathan’s administration has lost touch, in spirit and in flesh, with the Nigerian people. There is an adage among the Nupe that “when a tree falls in a woodcarver’s home, he carves (needless) items including ladles”. Ladle is singled out to demonstrate the woodcarver’s out-of-character handiwork because, as a utensil from metal, it is (in Nupe tradition and culture) supposed to be produced by blacksmiths. President Jonathan’s administration is metaphorically the woodcarver; himself being the chief carver. The country’s resources at the administration’s disposal are so enormous that the same resources have blindfolded it from appreciating the obvious socio-economic realities that are gradually turning many Nigerians into “walking corpses”.
If Nigeria were not a “tree” in a woodcarver’s home, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) would not have on Wednesday November 21, 2012 approved N2.2 billion for the construction of a new 150-seat presidential banquet hall when there already exists in the same State House a 1,500 seat-capacity hall built in 2003 to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). If the “woodcarvers” have actually not lost contact with those whose “tree” (plausibly or crookedly or accidentally) made them “woodcarvers”, the FEC would not have approved additional funds to build a N16 billion house for the Vice President.
If the “woodcarvers” were not living in another “Nigeria” within the Nigeria that nurtured the “tree” from which they are carving unneeded items, they wouldn’t and couldn’t have asked the National Assembly to approve N161 billion to fund the scam called fuel subsidy, three weeks to the end of the fiscal year. In the 2013 appropriation bill, “the woodcarvers” are proposing to pay “only” 249 staff of PPPRA an emolument of N5.7 billion (N23.7 million per worker); an amount higher than the annual budget of a federal university in Nigeria.
These are happening when hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths are unemployed; when access to clean water is getting more and more exclusive; when many roads have become death traps; when workers and teachers in some states are still begging for N18, 000 minimum wage; when education is in total ruins; and when poverty is boldly engraved on the forehead of many Nigerians.
I have few suggestions for the league of “woodcarvers” as to how they can directly and positively impact upon the lives of Nigerians in simple but different ways. Government is advised to rescind its decision on building a new N2.2 billion banquet hall. It should also halt the spending of additional N9 billion on VP’s official residence. N11.2 billion would be saved from these two projects and should be lodged in a special account to be called “Forbidden Fruits (FF)”. The presidential request of N161 billion proposed for servicing fuel subsidy should instead be dedicated to the FF account. This raises the balance of this account to N172.2 billion. When you abolish PPPRA, deploying its 249 workers to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); the N5.7 billion budgeted for salary would be saved for the FF account. SURE-P should equally be scrapped to save its N273.5 billion budgeted for 2013, dedicating it to the FF account. This would build up the FF account to N451.4 billion.
SURE-P, sooner than expected, became a sink hole. SURE-P recently traded its integrity when during its budget defense at the National Assembly Nigerians heard that it blew up N2.2 billion on “secretariat services” and N75 million on local “tours” within four months (July to October 2012). Except for the erstwhile Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under General Muhammadu Buhari which positive waves reached every niche and corner of the country, experience has shown that agencies created by government to reduce poverty and create unemployment beginning from DFRRI; to NDE; NAPEP and more recently SURE-P; turned out to be fanfare projects or conduit pipes for siphoning public funds.
The discourse continues next week insha Allah with a catalogue of proposals on how the N451.4 billion in the FF account would be expended for the benefit of Nigerians. May Allah (SWT) enrich the hearts of the “woodcarvers” with piety, amin.
Articles
Jamboree of spree overheads (I)
Category: Philosofaith Written by M.U Ndagi Hits: 630
Media reports indicate that the past three weeks have been a jamboree of spree expenditures in ministries, departments and agencies of government. It has become an end of year rite in government establishments in Nigeria to empty public treasury before 12 midnight of December 31 every year; even if it would require doing it the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) way. The inconclusive subsidy probe exposed the fictious payments by PPPRA of N999 million 128 times within 24 hours to “unknown” oil companies; an act amazing enough to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records!
The past few weeks have been a “climate” of workshops, conferences and seminars in the name of capacity building (sorry please, “pocket-building”) at various ministries and agencies. Choice hotels in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and other state capitals have been playing host to several of such funny, “window-dressing”, and fund-looting workshops; with showy banners struggling for spaces at hotel entrances. Receipts for materials that were never purchased or for work never carried out have lately become henna decorating the hands of senior public officers.The desperation to pilfer billions of naira from public treasury within this period is revealed in the replication of the impromptu themes of workshops and conferences by government agencies; all in the frantic effort to exhaust all the monies provided in their 2012 budget estimates before the elapse of the fiscal year when government accounts will officially close. Did I hear you talk of returning unspent funds to the treasury? Ashah (Hausa expression to illustrate discontent)! That became a taboo soon after both Alhaji Hassan Lemu, Late Northern Premier (Sardauna)’s Principal Private Secretary (PPS) and Late Alhaji Muhammadu Jega (Private Secretary to the Premier 1963-64) retired from public service.
Recent events in the country suggest that President Jonathan’s administration has lost touch, in spirit and in flesh, with the Nigerian people. There is an adage among the Nupe that “when a tree falls in a woodcarver’s home, he carves (needless) items including ladles”. Ladle is singled out to demonstrate the woodcarver’s out-of-character handiwork because, as a utensil from metal, it is (in Nupe tradition and culture) supposed to be produced by blacksmiths. President Jonathan’s administration is metaphorically the woodcarver; himself being the chief carver. The country’s resources at the administration’s disposal are so enormous that the same resources have blindfolded it from appreciating the obvious socio-economic realities that are gradually turning many Nigerians into “walking corpses”.
If Nigeria were not a “tree” in a woodcarver’s home, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) would not have on Wednesday November 21, 2012 approved N2.2 billion for the construction of a new 150-seat presidential banquet hall when there already exists in the same State House a 1,500 seat-capacity hall built in 2003 to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). If the “woodcarvers” have actually not lost contact with those whose “tree” (plausibly or crookedly or accidentally) made them “woodcarvers”, the FEC would not have approved additional funds to build a N16 billion house for the Vice President.
If the “woodcarvers” were not living in another “Nigeria” within the Nigeria that nurtured the “tree” from which they are carving unneeded items, they wouldn’t and couldn’t have asked the National Assembly to approve N161 billion to fund the scam called fuel subsidy, three weeks to the end of the fiscal year. In the 2013 appropriation bill, “the woodcarvers” are proposing to pay “only” 249 staff of PPPRA an emolument of N5.7 billion (N23.7 million per worker); an amount higher than the annual budget of a federal university in Nigeria.
These are happening when hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths are unemployed; when access to clean water is getting more and more exclusive; when many roads have become death traps; when workers and teachers in some states are still begging for N18, 000 minimum wage; when education is in total ruins; and when poverty is boldly engraved on the forehead of many Nigerians.
I have few suggestions for the league of “woodcarvers” as to how they can directly and positively impact upon the lives of Nigerians in simple but different ways. Government is advised to rescind its decision on building a new N2.2 billion banquet hall. It should also halt the spending of additional N9 billion on VP’s official residence. N11.2 billion would be saved from these two projects and should be lodged in a special account to be called “Forbidden Fruits (FF)”. The presidential request of N161 billion proposed for servicing fuel subsidy should instead be dedicated to the FF account. This raises the balance of this account to N172.2 billion. When you abolish PPPRA, deploying its 249 workers to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); the N5.7 billion budgeted for salary would be saved for the FF account. SURE-P should equally be scrapped to save its N273.5 billion budgeted for 2013, dedicating it to the FF account. This would build up the FF account to N451.4 billion.
SURE-P, sooner than expected, became a sink hole. SURE-P recently traded its integrity when during its budget defense at the National Assembly Nigerians heard that it blew up N2.2 billion on “secretariat services” and N75 million on local “tours” within four months (July to October 2012). Except for the erstwhile Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) under General Muhammadu Buhari which positive waves reached every niche and corner of the country, experience has shown that agencies created by government to reduce poverty and create unemployment beginning from DFRRI; to NDE; NAPEP and more recently SURE-P; turned out to be fanfare projects or conduit pipes for siphoning public funds.
The discourse continues next week insha Allah with a catalogue of proposals on how the N451.4 billion in the FF account would be expended for the benefit of Nigerians. May Allah (SWT) enrich the hearts of the “woodcarvers” with piety, amin.