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PEOPLE
AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA Due
process? What due process?
She
came unannounced into the Ladi Kwali Conference Hall of the Sheraton
Hotel, For both Aluko and Awoniyi, Ezekwesili’s BMPIU couldn’t have been more calculated to abet corruption and waste rather than eliminate or reduce the twin evils. This, both said, was simply because a monopoly over anything is an irresistible temptation to abuse. And in the last four years the BMPIU had been given the monopoly to certify each and every federal government contract, beyond a certain amount, before it is approved for execution and payment. Ezekwesili must have felt unhappy with the criticisms from Aluko and Awoniyi, for, only a couple of days or so after they spoke, she seized the opportunity of a media dinner at Rock View Hotel, Abuja, to reply, not only the two gentlemen, but all other critics of “Due Process”. Aluko and Awoniyi would not be the first to criticize BMPIU. Among federal civil servants, the unit has become very unpopular because they see it see as usurping their jobs of executing federal government projects. The unit is also no more popular with the federal legislators, many of who see it as a bottleneck in the release of their financial appropriations. One senator, Yushau Anka, the senate minority whip, went as far as to declare it as “illegal and unconstitutional”. “Due
process”, he said in reaction to President Obasanjo’s 2005 budget
speech in which the president extolled the virtues of BUPIU, “is not
saving money, but wasting money. We are being pound foolish and penny
wise… Due process has become another conduit for corruption and the
practice of nepotism. Contractors complain of greasing palms of
officials before contracts are awarded. Contractors qualified by due
process come from one section of the country which is contrary to the
federal character principle”. (Daily Trust, Anka’s comments obviously add a regional or ethnic dimension to the widespread criticisms of BMPIU. The news report did not say whether the senator gave any facts and figures to prove his charge. But whether he did or not and whether his facts and figures were accurate or not, there is little doubt that the BMPIU itself is hardly anywhere as popular as its boss has become famous. It
is, of course, not as if the BMPIU is universally despised.
Far from it. For
instance only the other day, the Nigerian Tribune which
has lately been highly
critical of the president and his economic reforms, wrote an editorial
in praise of the unit. The occasion was the news that six states,
Bauchi, “The coming into being of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU) in the presidency”, said the Tribune (January 18, 2005), “would appear to be addressing the issue of preventing corruption and other sharp practices in the public procurement and tendering process in the public service”. For this reason, the paper said, it was unfortunate that “due process” has been restricted to the central government. “It is therefore cheery news” it said, “that some states are beginning to wake up from their protracted lethargy to embrace due process. It is also gratifying that these states are, apparently, endorsing the activities of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit at a time when the latter is a subject of scathing criticisms and strident calls for its scraping by those whose avenues for sleazy practices are being shut”. Even then Ezekwesili was apparently not going to rely on only sympathetic voices like that of the Tribune to defend her case. As I said a little while ago, she seized the opportunity of a media dinner a few days after Aluko and Awoniyi spoke against her unit, to defend herself and the unit. Contrary to claims that it is mired in corruption and has caused long delays in budget implementation, she said, last year alone the unit certified projects worth 290 billion Naira, representing 80 percent of the total 349 billion Naira capital budget for the year. Reports of her self-defence did not show whether she said anything about the performance of her unit in the first four full years of the Obasanjo administration, but even she would be hard put to defend its record .during the period In defending her unit, Ezekwesili claimed that as a result of its activities, today Nigerians get 80-85 Kobo value for every Naira the government spends on their behalf, compared to 45 Kobo they used to get before its creation. I am not a statistician, or a chartered accountant like Ezekwesili, or an economist, but you do not need to be any of these to assess the accuracy of her claims, provided you know the variables and the formula she used to arrive at her figures. I do not know what variables and what formula “Madam Due Process” used to make her claims about the impact of BMPIU in the last five odd years. But no one needs to know her variables and formulation to reach the conclusion that her claims do not square with the facts on the ground. As the dog said when told there was a feast going on at its residence, “one would have to partake of the feast to believe it”. If indeed Nigerians have been deriving 80 percent value for the money spent on their behalf since the creation of BMPIU, they are yet to see or feel it. On the contrary, the quality of their lives has never taken the kind of plunge it has in the last five odd years. And the evidence is there not just in the statistics of multi-national organizations like the Word Bank and the UNDP – statistics whose credibility President Obasanjo has questioned when he said not too long ago Nigerians are not poor – but in statistics from federal government’s own documents, notably those of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, NEEDS, which the president himself launched on March 15, last year. For example, according to NEEDS, seven in every 10 Nigerians now live on less than one dollar or 140 Naira a day. If Nigerians got value for all the over three trillion Naira the federal government has spent on their behalf in the last five years, they would not have had to rely on less than one dollar a year to sustain their lives, something which, needless to say, is an impossibility. And
it is not just official documents that belie the claims that Nigerians
are getting value for their money since the creation of BMPIU. Every
government official, except the president, often quotes similar
statistics when they get an opportunity to do so. For example, only the
other day, the Minister of Finance, no less, published an article in The
Guardian of London (January 31), in which she painted a very dismal
picture of Nigeria in an attempt to convince our Western creditors to
cancel our debts. “The fact”, the minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
said, “is that This is hardly the picture of a country whose enormous income in the last five years had been spent wisely and efficiently. And, again, it is not only official documents and government officials that provide evidence that contradict Ezekwesili’s claims of value for money. The evidence is there in the clouds of financial scandal that has hanged over several major federal government projects like the Abuja National Stadium, the COJA games, the CHOGM and the establishment of new FRCN FM stations as well as new NTA stations. Some of these projects, especially those in which the president seem to have a personal interest, were never subjected to limited tender procedure, never mind open tender. All this, however, is besides the point, which is that concentrating the powers of ensuring compliance with due process in one office is self-defeating, no matter the integrity of those in charge. This is for the simple reason that even the most honest person has his limitations. In defending herself and her unit, Ezekwesili said an executive bill is already before the National Assembly for the transformation of her unit into a Federal Bureau of Public Procurement under a National Council on Public Procurement. The council will comprise nine members with the president as the chair. The
National Assembly should reject the bill outright. This is the dictate
of the facts on the ground regarding the value of the BMPIU, whatever
claims to the contrary its supporters make. More importantly, it is also
the dictate of the principle that the monopoly of power corrupts
absolutely.
As
Chief Awoniyi said at the Trust dialogue,
the problem of inefficiency and corruption in the implementation of
projects has never been the inadequacy of rules, but the lack of will to
punish those who break them. This was pretty evident from the
government’s sacking of the Auditor-General of the Federation who blew
the whistle against massive government fraud about two years ago,
instead of rewarding him. Apart from this lack of will to punish those
who break the rules, there is also the job insecurity
that the somewhat arbitrary civil service purge
of 1975 and all subsequent ones have engendered. The solution to the problem of budget implementation therefore lies in political leaders having the will to punish wrong and reward right and in building back security in to the system. Certainly it does not lie in concentrating the powers to certify all contracts into one institution. |