EVENTS of the past few months revealing flagrant abuse of financial regulations and misapplication of public funds in some federal agencies give a glimpse of how public funds are being recklessly squandered by government officials. The malfeasance in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and its affiliate agencies is just a pointer to what happens in a number of public institutions in the country.
In a country where more than 75 per-cent of the population is under the yoke of severe poverty and lack, it is heart-rending to hear the amount of money being salted away mindlessly by public officials who otherwise have a responsibility of protecting and projecting the commonwealth. Although investigations are still on-going in the financial heist in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs for which the Minister, Betta Edu, has been suspended from office pending the outcome of on-going investigations, what has been revealed already is sickening.
The development in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry might well be the tip of the iceberg if a searchlight is beamed on other public institutions. It has become obvious that the downturn experienced in the country’s economy is not just a case of shortfall in resources but more of the mismanagement of available resources. There are a number of factors that have seen the country’s economy walking down the slope, but more than the resource fundamentals, is the use for which available funds have been put.
Public institutions have now perfected the art of creating subheads through which they funnel public funds into private pockets while projects and services that would have improved the lives of the generality of the people suffer. While public utilities and the living standards of the masses deteriorate, the welfare of public officers gains incremental boosts through regular and irregular appropriations and fraudulent disbursements.
Corruption has become both endemic and systemic in the public service in the three tiers of government. The lure of the public service has become the looting of the public till. Public servants are now richer than the institutions they superintend. The impunity with which they do it is scary. It is common to find a local government chairman who could not complete an inherited Local Government Secretariat project completing a personal mansion, building a massive hotel and owning fuel dispensing facilities within a short tenure in office.
These mindless looting has been going on for so long and it is becoming a habit displayed with absolute impunity. Even though this unbecoming situation garnered impetus during the military dispensation in governance, it has been taken to a worrisome level by politicians and their accomplices in the public service. The public service has become a bastion of corrupt practices. Unfortunately, the private sector is not spared of this malaise. It has become a debilitating virus ravaging the delicate fabric of Nigerian society with dire implications for the economy and the well-being of the larger society.
Looting of the public till has been going on for as long as the country has been independent but it is now assuming a disastrous dimension because no concrete deterrent actions have been taken in the past. No punishment for bad behaviour! Perpetrators have either been shielded or given a mild slap on the wrist. And because there were no implications, it has become business as usual. This probably is responsible for the commendation President Bola Tinubu is currently receiving for suspending and recommending for trial those suspected to be behind the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry and Central Bank of Nigeria rackets, something that ordinarily should be a routine act in governance.
We are not unmindful of the fact that civil servants are the brains behind most of the corrupt practices. With their experience in the system, they indoctrinate political appointees. Where the appointees fail to kowtow, civil servants do them in. The latter happens particularly when inexperienced appointees work with entrenched civil servants. The civil servants exploit structural loopholes within the system for their own benefit, using the politicians as cover.
There is an absolute need for the structural loopholes in the system to be plugged if the situation is to be curbed. There is also a need for experienced hands to be appointed to sensitive ministries, departments and agencies, with specific instructions to work within existing structural and financial regulations. They must learn to work with technocrats and abide by the service rules and regulations as well as avoid the snares often laid by civil servants.
To arrest the trend in the public service, the President would have to beam a searchlight on the civil service. There is a systemic rot that has to be cleared for the stench to go away. There are entrenched habits within the system that have become both attractive and destructive. Although not excusable, the Betta Edu episode might well be a result of tendencies, intrigues and power play within the system featuring the suspended minister and potentates within the system.
Though the President’s interventions are commendable, we hope it is not just a flash in the pan. We would like to see a new phase of governance where bad behaviours are immediately punished for sanity to prevail in the system and society. More importantly, we would like to see diligent interrogation and prosecution of those mentioned and found wanting in any case of infraction in the system, particularly in the cases currently under investigation. The investigations should be swift, to clear those who have no case to answer and punish those indicted.
Nigerians are used to the commotion of arrests and interrogations without meaningful outcomes. The public needs to know the outcome of the current and other investigations and the punitive actions taken. That is the only way the public will be persuaded that there is a change in attitude to governance, away from the gra-gra style that they are accustomed to. Unless there is severe punishment for treasury looters and reckless spenders of public funds, the same old song will continue.
We strongly believe that if the existing agencies of government are truly service-oriented and deliver on their respective and collective mandates, the country would really not need a Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. The ministry became necessary because those structures that would have supported and enhanced the welfare of the people ceased to be relevant. Even as it is, the federal government should have encouraged the states, through the National Economic Council (NEC), to handle the responsibility given the population targeted.
A central part of civil service reform must include unleashing and reforming the investigative arms of the government itself. Both the EFCC and ICPC must be allowed to truly function independently and carry out their responsibilities as mandated by the laws that established them, Similarly, the independence of the Auditor General must be assured and its reports made credible and released publicly, rather than “cleaning” the books of the Accountant General and federal agencies.
The government must consider creating the office of an Attorney General different from that of the Minister of Justice, to function truly as a legal adviser to the government. The Directorate of State Services (DSS) must be reoriented to focus on investigating real breaches of the law and putting its intelligence in the hands of the EFCC and Attorney General whose independence must also be assured for prosecution. As we have argued recently, police reform must be part of any credible anti-corruption package.
The National Assembly must reinvigorate its long-abused oversight role by investigating the executive. Legislation to reform the ICPC to make it report directly to the National Assembly might be necessary to beef up the Assembly’s investigative abilities. The more that our government investigates itself, and the more that the checks and balances allow ambitious politicians to use anti-corruption as a way to checkmate themselves and grow their careers, the more Nigerians will win.
Lastly, the President must ensure that the structures not only function optimally but the public treasury is safe from the hands of reckless office holders and their collaborators in the civil service. That would be a redeeming step that would reset the perception of the public that now see government as unconcerned about the travails of the masses.
