Between the National Assembly and Professor Osuji

Between the National Assembly and Professor Osuji: Evidence of Corruption in Budget Implementation

Nasiru Yauri

University of Maryland, College Park, USA.

He who fails to plan, has planned to fail, is an old adage in managerial discourse. The adage underscores the importance of planning to the survival, growth and prosperity of organisations and economic systems. Even individuals need to plan, in order to ensure that the scarce resources available to them are efficiently utilised. No society, no matter how rich has adequate resources to provide all that is necessary at any given point in time. However, that resources are allocated based on some planning procedure ensures that the problems, difficulties and sorrows of its members are minimised.

Whereas planning is a necessary precondition for the betterment of the welfare of a people, it is not a guarantee that such welfare effects are achieved. To achieve the benefit of increased welfare effects, the plans must be accurately implemented, and the resources allocated in plans must be allowed to reach the targets for which they are meant. National budgets are the most commonly utilised instruments of planning in government. A budget usually identifies the sources of revenue and the expenditure of government in addressing pressing national problems. How much money is allocated to a sector is therefore usually determined by the perception of the policy-makers on the priority that should be accorded to that sector. Scholars have agreed that the most prominent bane of national plans in Nigeria is corruption. This is basically because without financial resources no plans and its objectives will come to fruition. And corruption titrate the financial resources that are initially assigned to plans.

The recent arrest of Nigeria’s “Honourable” (in Nigeria everyone is honourable) Minister of Education provides an empirical evidence of how corruption has engulfed budget implementation in Nigeria. A question that beg for answer is, why did the NASS committee enter into a deal with the Minister of Education for the sum of N50 million to be paid so that his ministry’s budgetary allocation will be raised? Is the ministry his personal business? If Education is deemed important, does the NASS committee need bribe to raise the allocation of the ministry? Why must Osuji, and CEOs of JAMB, UBE, NOUN, NECO and some FGCs, as alleged, have to pay bribe to have the allocation of a ministry, not their personal businesses, raised?

Apparently, all these are clear manifestations of the web-like rot in our system, and the extent of corruption in Nigeria. The Minister paid because he knows that the money coming to his ministry is within his absolute control, and the more he gets from budget allocation, the more he “reaps” personally. So hopes other “stakeholders” in this business of budget fraud. They are “investing” in anticipation of some “returns”. They understand that the system does not check their financial misappropriations, and even the apparatus for checking their financial misbehaviour itself is corruptible. So that budget is actually personal funds. The committee of the national assembly, on the other hand, knows and recognises that budgetary allocations are just pieces of cake, and they therefore want to have their cut. Thus, the school children who learn in roofless classes, the tertiary institutions that operate with the barest amounts of equipments are catered for only on paper (in budget plans) but the actual budget allocation ends in some personal accounts. To me, this is the kind of “stealing” that is worst in nature, where one thief or a small group of thieves steal what belongs to millions of people. If the shari’ah prescribes that a thief should have his hand cut, I really feel that this class of thieves should be cut in the stomach.

Such is the extent that corruption has eaten into the implementation aspect of our national budgets. What hope do we have as a people in the face of these emerging discoveries? The only hope would have been from a good auditing system. But many of us know that it is the same thing the auditors do; solicit to be sent to audit the ministries and parastatals with bigger budget allocation. So that their “proceeds” from the audit exercise will equally come out big! Oh why has corruption so engulfed the Nigerian society? Why has it become a norm, a way of life?

And the worst part of it is that wholesome amounts of money are involved. If this allegation of N50 million bribery is confirmed, it translates into a corruption scandal of about 350, 000 dollars. Just recently, a governor of a state in the US was sent to prison for a 100, 000 dollars bribery scandal. In Nigeria, despite several cases of alleged financial misappropriations in high places, none of them has been made to face the wrath of the law. One committee of the national assembly has collected three times what the US governor collected, will they go to prison? Balogun alone was alleged to have stolen 7 million dollars, is he on his way to prison? Why should such scandals die naturally in Nigeria? This is discouraging enough especially for those who have the resolve to change this trend. If exposing such culprits does not necessarily mean that they will face the full wrath of the law, then what is the essence? In some cases, those who take the courage to expose corruption were even made the victims. For I recall that when an auditor general of the federation of Nigeria at a point in time raised dust that there is gross financial misappropriations in Nigeria, he was fired for it. And when Haruna Yerima complained a few weeks ago that there are scandals surrounding the budget at the national assembly, the national assembly simply suspended Haruna Yerima.

Lest I digress, the bottom line is that the masses do not have any hope of increased welfare if budget allocations are grossly misappropriated. If the Nigerian people have been experiencing absolute poverty, while the country makes money from oil, the explanation for the gap is corruption. No matter how much the country receives in revenue, the masses will not feel the effect of it unless and until budgets are implemented. It is no surprise therefore that as the country is said to receive increased fortunes from the sale of oil, the suffering of the masses has remained un-ameliorated. The health, education, agriculture and other sensitive sectors of the Nigerian system continue to suffer due to the greed of a very few; absolute greed in which individuals steal from the coffers of government, enough money to solve the problems of an entire generation. A few individuals steal money enough to rehabilitate our ailing hospitals and repair our roads which are today more of death traps than means of transit. There will be absolutely no traces of economic growth, if the economy does not feel the effect of government spending, as enshrined in the budget. Thus, as we continue to undermine the importance of our budget, we are simultaneously undermining our progress as a people.

Most unfortunately, corruption in budget implementation affects all the tiers of government in Nigeria. Federal, state and local government budgets are grossly abused in Nigeria. So that Nigerians do not really know where to turn for respite. Have we not seen local governments in Nigeria where the executive and legislative arms connive and take the whole monthly allocation into the bush to share among themselves? The only thing the citizens see is their leaders emerging from bushes with their sacks full of cash. It is so bad, that in some instances, they even refuse to pay staff salaries for months. In some states, ministries are busy only at the beginning of the month, when allocations are shared, and commissioners are around to partake in the sharing of the booty.

If the Nigerian government is truly sincere in its anti-corruption crusade, then the allegations of this budget scandal should be thoroughly investigated. And there should be no sacred cows. At the end of it all, if it is a crime to “steal” public funds then let’s see the punishment for it. Not only Osuji’s ministry of education and the NASS committee on education, but other ministries and NASS committees should equally be investigated. On top of all that, lets sanitise our budget implementation over a period of five years, and we shall see how the fortunes of Nigerians as a whole will change for the better. If close to the last kobo of our budget funds are spent as allocated, then we will have hospitals with adequate drugs, roads without potholes, schools without strikes etc. etc. If the Nigerian federal government can find a way of ensuring that budgets are diligently implemented in all tiers of government over a period of five years for a start, the phenomena of social unrest, religious and ethnic crises, civil discontent, secession agitations, to mention a few, will also be highly minimised. Let’s try that as a solution and see if it works. In which case, there will be no need for a national conference; the problems of Nigerians are poverty and the inadequacy or in some cases, complete lack of access, to the basic necessities of life.