Against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s plan to pay N729 billion to 24.3 million poor Nigerians for
six months, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has given a seven-day ultimatum to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadia Umar-Farouk, to publish details of the proposed payment.
Also demanded by SERAP to be incorporated in the publication are the mechanisms and logistics for the payments, list of beneficiaries, and how they have been nominated, projected payments per state, and whether the payments would be made in cash or through Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) or other means.
The minister was also asked to elucidate the rationale for paying N5,000 to 24.3 million poor Nigerians, which translates to five per cent of the country’s budget of N13.6 trillion for 2021 and to clarify if this projected spending is part of the N5.6 trillion budget deficit. Recall that Umar-Farouk recently disclosed Federal Government’s proposal to pay about N24.3 million vulnerable Nigerians N5,000 each for six months to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
SERAP deserves commendation for the extraordinary bravery in constantly soliciting accountability from the government, therefore, putting them on their toes. Given the general lack of transparency in government businesses, it is expedient, as SERAP requested, for the details of how the N729 billion for indigent Nigerians will be expended. That way, the risks of misuse and diversion of the funds will be extricated.
As the nation’s foremost anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must show inclination to be involved in the undiminished transaction by jointly tracking and monitoring the payments to ensure that only listed persons benefit from the process. The EFCC can moreover certify the disbursement procedure and guarantee that it is corruption-free. Corruption is so pervasive that it has turned public service for many into a kind of criminal enterprise.
Similarly, since the funds in question must have been appropriated for, the National Assembly (NASS) has a countervailing duty to perform. As part of its oversight function, the federal lawmakers can compel the minister to disclose the logistics and mechanism for the payments. Also, the NASS should ascertain the list of payment and how the beneficiaries have been selected, especially to determine whether the federal character principle is reflected.
It must be pointed out that the Nigerian government has a major responsibility to monitor and fully implement the requirements set by the socio-economic rights group and other anti-corruption controls. There must be a guarantee that the payments are justified in light of the huge budget deficit and borrowings. It has to be ascertained whether there are better ways to use up the N729 billion to support impoverished Nigerians.
It is most distressing that corrupt Nigerians are munching very fat on various well-intended government’s programmes. Endemic corruption has enriched a small elite but left many Nigerians mired in poverty despite the country being Africa’s top oil producer and having the continent’s biggest economy. In the past, mind-boggling sums of money had been malversated from social programmes designed to empower disadvantaged Nigerians. How then can we tell whether this will not go similarly?
The question is, when payment eventually commences, what kind of yardstick will be employed for measuring and confirming that the monies have been disbursed, particularly to the targeted persons to validate anticipated claims by government officials that requitals have been effected? The query is expedient given that Nigerians are often confronted with circumstances in which monies are approved and spent with no way of substantiating the recipients.
A case in point was the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that some palliatives be distributed to cushion the effects of the pandemic during the COVID-19 lockdown last year, and that included the sustenance of the school feeding programme even though the schools remained closed. The directive raised more doubts as to the continuation of the School Feeding Programme while the schools were shut. Many Nigerians did not understand how it worked.
How was the policy made to work during the lockdown and schools’ closure? Were the children fed at home when under the care of their parents and guardians? How did the vendors move about in most parts of the country during the lockdown? Who assessed the supposed food quality? And who monitored the distributions? No answers have been provided till date. This is a clear proof that there is unrestrained corruption in the execution of welfare-oriented programmes of the government.
Meanwhile, as an addendum, SERAP is also questioning the recent approval of $500 million by the World Bank Board of Directors to boost access to electricity in Nigeria and improve the performance of the electricity distribution companies in the country. The $500 million is part of the over $1billion available to Nigeria under the project titled: Nigeria Distribution Sector Recovery Programme.
The group has prodded the World Bank to release archival records and documents relating to spending on all approved funds on electricity in Nigeria between 1999 and 2020 and demanded the bank’s role in the execution of any funded electricity projects, identify Nigerian officials, ministries, departments and agencies involved in any executed projects.
There is a need for the World Bank to heed SERAP’s request. We are seriously concerned that the funds approved by the bank are vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement. The global bank must ensure that the Nigerian authorities and their agencies are transparent and accountable to Nigerians on how they spend the approved funds for electricity projects in the country, and to reduce vulnerability to corruption and abuse.
The World Bank necessarily has to see how Nigerians are paying the price for widespread and systemic corruption in the electricity sector, and how more than N11 trillion funds designed to enhance performance of the power sector have been squandered by successive administrations in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999.
Nigeria can no longer run away from the challenges posed by the accountability group. SERAP’s requests in both the N729bn for vulnerable Nigerians and the World Bank intervention in the nation’s power predicament raise specific issues of public interests. And Nigerians should be deeply concerned about how the authorities address these obvious reports of sweeping and systemic corruption in the affected sectors and demand answers from them on the vexed questions.