September 21, (THEWILL) – The recent report for the outgoing financial year by the Auditor-General of the Federation, Mr. Shaakaa Chira, has not only exposed the high level of impunity and audacity of ministries and agencies when it comes to financial corruption but also the apparent helplessness, if not complicity, by the government itself.
In the report, Mr Chira flagged billions of Naira in unaccounted for expenditure: N33.75 billion in unverified cash transfers to 3.29 vulnerable households across 35 states; Over N126.46 billion in public funds as the Independent National Electoral Commission as mismanaged, lost, diverted or unaccounted for; N203.09 billion spent by the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM without supporting documents and on and on!
Since the Muhammadu Buhari Administration, corruption has been one of the cornerstones of government policies; the pledge to check, reduce and possibly eliminate this plague of public service and frustrating service delivery to the Nigerians is beginning to appear as lip service.
Policies like SERVICOM, which seeks to make every public servant conscious of their role as the ultimate conveyor of government policies to the people; the Single Treasury Account, which seeks to plug leakages in the bureaucracy through the elimination of ghost workers, stop multiple accounts often used for duplicating contracts and falsifying documents and ensure proper accounting and transparency in remittances by agencies and ministries to the public treasury.
At a point, when MDAs were deliberately staying away from budget defence during oversight by the National Assembly, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume and the Accountant-General of the Federation, Olujimi, made it mandatory for the heads of the agencies to head the summons of the senior lawmakers on pain of severe sanctions.
Yet year after year, ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of departments and agencies have either learnt nothing or submitted to the new policies. And so, cases of official corruption whereby agencies and ministries conduct government work like private businesses, where the heads can freely dip their hands into the treasury without compunction, continue to reign.
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Even direct public commissions like the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which used to regale the public with delayed receipt of funds from the government, and the Nigeria Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM, have been allegedly indicted by the recent auditor-general’s report. The figures are not just staggering, but the manner in which the monies were taken from the treasury is unbelievable. In some cases, receipts were allegedly forged and in other cases, there was no evidence of purchases for the stated amount.
The questions beginning for answers are these. Who authorised the payments? Who forged the receipts? For whom were the goods and services delivered and what would happen to the culprits if they were ever caught? And finally, what went wrong with the government’s anti-corruption policy from Buhari to the present?
Good enough, Commissions like NIDCOM and its Chairman, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Eruwa, for example have promised to account for every detail of the transactions and provide receipts for them.
We urge others allegedly indicted by the AG report to follow Dabiri-Eruwa’s example and clear their name. Moreover, the government should treat the AG report with the seriousness it deserves. The crisis appears to be beyond the handling of principal officers of the agencies.
Beyond sanctions, other appropriate measures should be applied to anyone found culpable. After appropriate inquest and interrogation according to civil service rules, public servants found wanting should be disciplined either through demotion or sacked without benefits. Enough of this impunity that diminishes the government and contributes to impoverishing the people through improper, unconscionable mismanagement of our commonwealth.
