Glamour of World Bank desk in the Presidency

March 2, 2012 by Editorial Board 

IN an attempt purportedly aimed at reining in graft in budgeting, President Goodluck Jonathan has resolved to deploy personnel of the World Bank in The Presidency to supervise Budget 2012 execution. The Public Procurement Act 2007 (Section 5) vests in the Bureau of Public Procurement the powers to “certify federal procurement prior to the award of contract and supervise the implementation of established procurement policies.” The review thresholds are to be set by a National Council for Public Procurement.

 But Jonathan insists that a World Bank desk in his office is the fool-proof guarantee he needs against “over-invoicing of major contracts.”
In an interview published in the February 20, 2012 edition of the weekly TELL magazine, the President explained his plan: “Very soon, we will get people from the World Bank to be at my office. For every contract we want to award, irrespective of the structures we have on the ground, they will assess it…. Before we approve any major contract, it will pass through that desk for further screening so that we know and compare the cost.”
It is an argument that sounds plausible but misses the point. Every patriotic Nigerian shares the President’s worries about “over-invoicing of major contracts” and the fact that “we have the Bureau of Public Procurement, but that has not completely stopped corruption in procurement.” The question is: what is wrong? The 1999 Constitution, the Finance (Control & Management) Act 1958 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 provide mandates and specific roles for the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office of the Federation to play in the budgeting process. The path the President has chosen is strange because he has neither constituted nor inaugurated the National Council for Public Procurement as required by the law. Resolutions have been passed by the National Assembly, urging him to comply with that stipulation of the Act, but without action on his part. By his failure (or refusal) to activate the council, Jonathan has personally weakened the institutional capacity for the tasks of vetting and awarding contracts.
The Budget Office of the Federation (Federal Ministry of Finance) and Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit of The Presidency (Due Process) have pools of manpower and top-grade experts that are paid to provide such services. The effectiveness and efficiency of the Budget Office and BMPIU is being undermined by the ministers who make up the Federal Executive Council. And there has never been any demonstration of will, on the part of the President, to check interference by ministers and top Presidency functionaries in the operations of those departments.
Continually instituting ineffectual committees, task forces, panels and foreign consultancy teams (capital project management firms and now World Bank) for responsibilities that are within the purview of ministries, departments and agencies is symptomatic of systemic dysfunction.
The unvarnished truth is that corruption, rather than public interest, drives Nigeria’s entire budgeting process from conception to implementation. The litany of scandals that has beset the 2012 budget preparation points to the influence of graft on the budgeting process.
It is no use denying that budgets in Nigeria always end in tears. More often than not, the approved budget is unrealistic or fraudulently padded with frivolities. A World Bank report identifies extreme uncertainty concerning available resources, funds outside the budget process hoarded by spending units, significant arrears that are not included in financial statements, significant discrepancies between actual and reported expenditure for certain activities and funds diverted for unauthorised purposes or private accounts as some common problems in implementing budgets in poor countries.
Genuine commitment to transparency and accountability have been manifestly lacking, given the failure of Jonathan and his predecessor, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, to act on the findings and recommendations of several probe reports by committees of the National Assembly. The unspeakable rot unearthed in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation provided the President a challenge – to demonstrate his resolve to curb corruption and to enthrone probity.
Yearly reports of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation have similarly highlighted cesspools of corruption throughout the federal bureaucracy. The very weaknesses that the President seeks to remedy through World Bank experts could have been greatly minimised if, at the inception of his administration in early 2010, he had himself been purpose-driven. For instance, does he need the World Bank to check the bloated overheads that have increased significantly today, rising to 183 per cent since 2005?
There are no excuses for ineptitude. Jonathan only needs to allow the appropriate organs of the Federal Civil Service to function unfettered and with the required equipment and other resources. It is sheer self-delusion to believe that external agents (from the World Bank or elsewhere) could come in and improve the efficiency and functionality of the government without the requisite political will to punish financial infractions. Change has to come from within. It cannot be imposed from outside. Whatever has rendered the Federal Government incapacitated in the fight against corruption will definitely manifest when the foreign experts step in.


culled from the Punch Newspaper.....Nigeria