The Change of Gear Buhari Need in APC Change Crusade
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or the All Progressive Congress
(APC) and President Buhari to realise election pledges on change to the
country, there is the need for the President who is the chief executive of the
country to change his approach. In Government, there is always not time out for
any reasons. The take-off date of the Government was the handover date of
The multiple but debilitating and
crushing problems of the country are begging to be solved. It takes less time to solve a problem or
multiple problems even simultaneously if you know what to do, have the road
map, (plan) of what you want to do. There is not the slightest doubt that the
know-how for what we need to do exist within APC let alone the whole country.
Buhari made the solving of corruptions of yesterday and banishing them out for
tomorrow and hence in the country his cardinal policy. The momentum for this
when it is even yet to start is already overwhelming Buhari. He cannot think
about any other issue but corruption.
The corruptions of yesterday are
historical issues and would not melt away. They can be visited at any time.
With Buhari on the saddle of the Government the corruptions may not again rear
their heads for at least the next four years. This means, the Government must
not allow the solving of corruption to take priority over the future of the
country. The future of the country in terms of social, economic and political
restructuring are what need more attention in order to secure her going
concern. In Government, a four-year term is like overnight. If Buhari does not
change his gear and accelerate, he may not even solve the corruption whose
basket he is now putting all his eggs let alone touch other issues, even one
quarter way.
Those who are always averse to
change, correction, probe and their delegated saboteurs are always in wait to
frustrate, as Government take off is delayed. They are already surrounding
Buhari directly or indirectly and looking for opportunity to pounce. They have
unexplained or doubtful wealth to flaunt, influence, distract and frustrate.
Since
Corruption in the country did not
start from Jonathan Government period. Therefore, in Buhari’s effort to solving
corruption in the country, he must look beyond Jonathan Government years and as
far as up to the Military regime. This means those that are to be assigned for
the task would have job for the next four years of the Government. As last in
first out approach should be adopted; the probe and recovering of looted fund
would start from Jonathan Government. After Jonathan Government period has been
covered, the rest of the preceding Governments period will be simple to probe
and with less time.
For Buahri to carrying out his
priority policy of corruption problem solving without neglecting the other
pressing problems of the country, he need to delegate. The Vice President,
Osinbajo, should be assigned to head all the various panels that are to be set
up for the different probes on the issue of corruption from unaccounted,
misappropriated, stolen funds and projects in the country, especially since
Governors are not those to organise
and conduct the necessary investigations or probe for the Federal Government.
Rather than calling foreign firms of accountants and auditors to again come and
carry out investigative audit to uproot the missing and misappropriated funds
and mismanaged projects for us, Buahri should appoint a team of about twenty
Nigerian professional accountants, as individuals, who were trained at top
firms and have at least ten years’ practice experience. They can be readily
available to be dispatched to any necessary investigation in the country. While
they are not on assignment they can conduct researches to help the President to
make the right decisions.
Nigeria is not a poor country but
for the successive PDP Governments that mismanaged her finances. It not that
there were inadequate systems of control and the mechanisms to enforce the
controls but the order from above that permeate every aspect of our society
that would not allow any good systems to function normally. Who are then to be
blamed for the endemic corruptions that today retard the country? The
leaderships are to be blamed. Here leadership should not be isolated to the
head of state but all the segmental heads in society who dish out orders from
the top for rules and regulations to be subverted. Here subordinates circumvent
the systems of control and ignore the rule of law and in addition serve
themselves as they are protected from the top.
For Buhari to stop the reigning
impunity in the country, it should not only be enough to formulate adequate
policies; adequate structure; adequate systems of control; the enforcement of
the controls but those that are in charge, accountable and control also need to
be controlled; Reversed Control. That is nobody should be seen to be above the
law. This is the primary duty of the law enforcement agents and the Court
Judges, who should always ignore order from above, for example, not to arrest,
prosecute or try certain people. But the Police and Judges must not only be
accountable but must be firmly controlled.
For
improved security; Buhari should immediately ensure that the Nigeria Police
Force is decentralised along the lines of Regional Government areas, you shall
read below. There should be a minimum of
two or a maximum of three Independent Police Commands in each Regional Government
area. Independent Police Command is where every head of Command is accountable
only in his area and responsible to the President. We do not need State or
Regional Police forces. The present number of four hundred thousand Police
personnel is far too small for the country. The number of Police personnel need
to be increased far more than this and so should be the numbers for Customs,
State Security Service and Prison Warders.
Buhari is already taking action on
revenue of the country for all Federal establishments to paying their turnover
into one consolidated account. All the establishments must pay 100% of their
turnover into this account if the scheme is to work for Buhari Government.
There should not be partial payment by some of the establishments. What Buhari
should do in addition is the establishment of a Ministry of Treasury.
Basically, the Ministry of Treasury is not going to be collecting revenue,
cash, from and for the designated Federal establishments. It should be there to
control the revenue generated by the Federal establishments in order to ensure
nothing is being misappropriated or held back. I do not want to stress further
on this matter as I have written extensively on it before, some of which were
published on this column and some of the newspapers at home, in Nigeria,
especially under article entitled, Financing
Nigeria’s Annual Budget, and in my various election manifestos on my
website.
It is fair to say that there is not
much that is wrong with the present corporate structure or organisation of the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) but the daily crude oil theft,
inappropriate method of crude oil sale and lack of fund accountability. Those
that are employed in the corporation are not only well educated with fine
brains, they are also well trained by the corporation. The order from above at
Aso Rock and lack of sincere ministerial supervision are responsible for the
crude oil theft and fund misappropriation in the corporation. In as much as the
fraudulent practices are perpetrated on the order from Aso Rock and the related
Minister, the management then serve themselves from what they are instructed to
do, as no questions will be asked.
As the corporation can now no longer
be able to misappropriate some of the crude oil produced or keep the proceeds
of sale of crude oil; there shall be little or no avenue for revenue
misappropriation except perhaps petty cash from its budget and internal
contract awards. These can easily be controlled. Most importantly, the Government
should ensure the corporation expand its sales department. All the crude oil
and products of the corporation that are to be sold should be sold only by the
staff of the sales department. The personnel of the sales department should be
increased. The corporation should no longer allocate crude oil to any outside
persons to sell, even if this was the instruction from Aso Rock. In the past
much of the crude oil were allocated to outside individuals to sell on behalf
of the corporation. Much of the proceeds did not find their way back to the
corporation. This was bribery or collusion to share fund from Aso Rock and the
Minister of Petroleum. It was not ordered nor authorised by the management of
the corporation, who know without order from above they will be picked up like
flies by the State Security Service and the Economic & Financial Crime
Commission.
There is not much you can do today
to improve the economy of the country without adequate electricity and landline
telephone. Buhari should revisit especially electricity and landline telephone
projects and their privatisation since
Buhari should not go globetrotting
in search for investors. Foreign investors already know our country. They have
their ears and noses on the ground in our country. When conditions are right
for them they will troop in on their own accord. Many Nigerians have legitimate
fund which are stacked abroad. If they even bring at least half of the fund
home to invest, we shall not be clamouring for foreign investors. Buhari need
to encourage these Nigerians to bring their fund home to invest. In the
process, they will not even be erroneously hounded for the wealth.
Salary payment is today a very
serious problem in the country. Many public and private establishments owe
their staff many months if not many years’ salary. Yet there is excess
liquidity in our banks. The minimum lending rate in the country is 13%. Banks
do not need high interest rate regime to make more money nor the Central Bank
need to control liquidity and inflation successfully with high interest rate.
High interest regime in Nigeria is maintained to please a class but powerful
people in society who know not the actual use of money to make money but to
dump it with the bank for high interest yield.
Today, in many advanced countries, the minimum lending rate is between
0% and 1.5% yet their banks make hefty profit every year. Buhari should ensure
that the minimum lending rate in Nigeria is not more than 5%.
It
should be a crime for any employer in the country to owe workers’ salary beyond
the normal payment period. All public sector employees’ salary, from Federal to
Local Government, should be paid through the banks. If an establishment does
not have the money, the banks should, nevertheless, pay the salary through a
form of arranged overdraft scheme. Those
in the private sector who cannot afford to pay salary regularly should be
obliged to adopt the same bank overdraft payment scheme. The scheme of regular
payment should also be extended to small contractors and small suppliers. Their
payment after the completion of their contracts should not be delayed more than
one month.
For
the public sector, there is light in the tunnel. The new measure of consolidated revenue where
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would release fund say quarterly in advance
to each establishment according to its cash flow budget would now enable
regular salary and contract payments in the country. With this scheme and the
arranged bank overdraft; there is not any organisation in the country that
shall have genuine reasons not to pay salary regularly. We need to embrace the
economics of timely and regular salary payment in the country. For example, a
hungry employee is an unproductive employee.
In order to have a firm control of
the finances of the country, the offices of the Accountant and Auditor Generals
should be abolished. All the Federal Government payments etc. should be
maintained by the Federal Ministry of Finance. The Presidency, National
Assembly, Judiciary, each Federal Ministry, Department and Agency should each
operates as a separate entity with its own Accountants and Internal Auditors.
The Federal Audit Commission should appoint private firms of Nigerian Chartered
Accountants to conduct regular audit on the procedure, books and accounts of
the public establishments and those of the State and Local Governments. At this
stage, the Government should no longer audit itself.
For Nigeria to have a stable and
growing economy free from significant imported cost, have valued currency, to
stop unnecessary and easy capital flight, the auction of the Naira should be
stopped. The Naira should be restored as an independent and convertible
currency in the foreign exchanges. With this all the currency exchanges and
remittances from and into the country would go through the normal banking and
foreign exchange system. With today computerisation and current method of daily
foreign exchange release to the banks for only the permissible transactions all
but set the ground for the restoration of the Naira as a convertible currency
in the foreign exchanges. For what are
we waiting? Nigeria is big, strategic enough and has the foreign reserve to
maintain her independent and convertible currency in the foreign exchanges. If
these are in place, the realistic foreign exchange convertible rate of the
Naira could be found from N5 to N10 to one US dollar.
The Federal Government should
abolish domiciliary bank accounts system in the country. In as much as the
commercial banks can hold some of their funds in foreign currencies for cash
transaction on the counter, the individuals and non-banking companies have not
the actual need to holding bank accounts in foreign currencies. In addition to
the foreign exchange round tripping abuses with these accounts, domiciliary bank
accounts are the conduit through which the holders keep their corruptly
acquired fund, transfer the money in the same foreign currency out of the
country through internet banking to their overseas bank accounts instantaneous
without the need for the banks to handle the transaction for them.
The Federal Ministers should be able
to control their Ministries, be on ground as to what happen in every
department, that things are done accordingly, contracts are being performed and
fully executed, especially those that generate revenue. For example, a revenue
critical Ministry such the Ministry of Petroleum Resources should have a
capable Minister. The Minister should be able to ascertain at all times the
actual crude oil and gas that are extracted in the country on daily basis and
that every single barrel of crude oil produced is accounted. The Minister
should be able to see that those crude oil and gas are wholly sold by the sales
department. The Minister should ascertain that the sales proceeds are totally accounted
for on daily basis. With these, there would be no need to be setting up
committees upon committees of investigation to be doing the job which a
Minister was first appointed to do and the President was elected.
On political restructuring, Buhari should abolish
the present thirty-six State Government areas. They are unnecessary
fragmentation of Government. They prevent the Federal Government from reaching
the grassroots on one hand and prevent the Local Governments from functioning
properly on the other hand. They are considerable waste of public money. They
are avoidable Government and expenditure. The thirty-six States should be
replaced with ten Regional Government areas; five from the South and five from
the North as follow;
In the South, there should be; Lagos Region, South West Region,
Mid-West Region, South East Region and South South Region.
In the North, there should be; Middle Belt West Region, Middle Belt
East Region, North East Region. Centre North Region and North West Region.
How
many of our towns or cities are more than 10 kilometres radius from their
centre? One big town or city should be one Local Government area. Two or more
small towns should be under one Local Government area. With this measure, the
number of Local Government areas in the country will be far less than the
present seven hundred and seventy-four (774) areas. This should be followed by
full autonomy for the Local Governments.
All that we need to do at NNPC,
other huge revenue generating Federal establishments, in fact every public
establishment, is to ensure right management personnel, establishment of
adequate systems of control, enforcement of the controls and efficient control
mechanisms are on ground. Upon all, we must stop illegal order from above and
unnecessary political interference into the management of the public
establishments. If we are able to collect, account and manage the generated
Federal revenue efficiently, we shall have less cash flow and financial
problems. All of these re-organisations and efficiency cash benefits would
result in more jobs creation.
Alfred Aisedionlen
(