Confronting Corruption
August 09, 2010
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The StandPoint is the consensual position of the NVS editorial board.
Jackie Selebi, former South Africa police boss and former President of Interpol was recently convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail for taking bribes of over R1.2 million ($157,000) in bribes since 2000. Tafa Balogun, Nigeria’s former police boss was convicted of stealing about N17 billion (or over $100 million). Today, he is not only a free man, but has retained his National Honours of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). Former Bayelsa state governor Depreye Alamieyeseigha was convicted of stealing about N126 billion (nearly $1 billion) over a six year period from his state. Today, he is also a free man and elder statesman.
The top echelon of Nigeria’s political leadership has been named as beneficiaries in the $180 million Halliburton scandal. Prominent ministers, senators, and members of the ruling PDP were also named in the Siemens scandal. The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company (LNG) claims it paid $5 billion into NNPC’s account, but the money simply varnished. Nothing has been heard in any of these cases. At the moment, the Senate has several members who have pending cases of corruption, but who in all likelihood will escape conviction, if they ever get to trial.
The foregoing instances are symptomatic of the attitude of Nigeria to corruption and why it will be an uphill task to rid the country of the menace.
So what needs to be done?
Nigeria has several agencies established to fight corruption. These include the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) and a plethora of other agencies. Collectively, these agencies have barely scratched the corruption conundrum. The obvious conclusion is that no matter the number of agencies set up to fight corruption, they will not succeed unless and until there is an Ethical Revolution because ultimately, corruption is a personal choice. Despite these problems, measures should be taken to strengthen and make these agencies more effective and independent.
a) Monitoring of Corruption Agencies. We call for the scrutiny of these agencies by an independent Ombudsman funded through a first-line charge from the federal revenue pool.
b) Unbundling of Corruption Agencies. Our corruption is simply too widespread, too entangled and too massive for only a couple of institutions to handle without being bogged down or compromised. The EFCC and the ICPC should therefore be unbundled along the same lines recommended by the Justice Uwais Panel for INEC. In this schema, 419 issues, for instance, would be handled by a body focusing on that issue; federal economic crimes would be separated from State/Local Government economic crime; and one arm of the ICPC would deal with anticipatory stealing.
Beyond agency reform, we also recommend the following:
In the final analysis, we do not expect these measures to completely halt the cancer of corruption. But corruption can and must be defeated if Nigeria is to have any chance for structured political and economic development.
The top echelon of Nigeria’s political leadership has been named as beneficiaries in the $180 million Halliburton scandal. Prominent ministers, senators, and members of the ruling PDP were also named in the Siemens scandal. The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company (LNG) claims it paid $5 billion into NNPC’s account, but the money simply varnished. Nothing has been heard in any of these cases. At the moment, the Senate has several members who have pending cases of corruption, but who in all likelihood will escape conviction, if they ever get to trial.
The foregoing instances are symptomatic of the attitude of Nigeria to corruption and why it will be an uphill task to rid the country of the menace.
So what needs to be done?
Nigeria has several agencies established to fight corruption. These include the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) and a plethora of other agencies. Collectively, these agencies have barely scratched the corruption conundrum. The obvious conclusion is that no matter the number of agencies set up to fight corruption, they will not succeed unless and until there is an Ethical Revolution because ultimately, corruption is a personal choice. Despite these problems, measures should be taken to strengthen and make these agencies more effective and independent.
a) Monitoring of Corruption Agencies. We call for the scrutiny of these agencies by an independent Ombudsman funded through a first-line charge from the federal revenue pool.
b) Unbundling of Corruption Agencies. Our corruption is simply too widespread, too entangled and too massive for only a couple of institutions to handle without being bogged down or compromised. The EFCC and the ICPC should therefore be unbundled along the same lines recommended by the Justice Uwais Panel for INEC. In this schema, 419 issues, for instance, would be handled by a body focusing on that issue; federal economic crimes would be separated from State/Local Government economic crime; and one arm of the ICPC would deal with anticipatory stealing.
Beyond agency reform, we also recommend the following:
- Public sector reform. The core civil servants number over 100,000 but contribute little to policy development and implementation. The public sector at the federal, state, and local government levels employ millions of incompetent, ill-trained, and ill-equipped staff who do little more than collect salaries every month. Government must realize that the civil service is NOT a welfare service.
- Introduce Benefits to reduce the motivation for theft. Theft is often fueled by unemployment among youth and the absence of unemployment benefits. The introduction of unemployment benefits and old age benefits would significantly reduce the urge to engage in corrupt practices.
- Tie Government Contracts to Job Creation. All tiers of government spend trillions of naira every year awarding contracts. Tying the award of contracts to the number of jobs beneficiary companies would create would generate millions of jobs and reduce the burden of joblessness and poverty which fan corruption.
- The passage of the Freedom of Information Bill with strong whistle-blower protection provisions.
- Creation of a publicly-accessible website at all levels of government to track government spending, budget proposals, legislative hearings on them, finalized budgets, contract awards, deliverables, progress, and completion dates in real time. The vigilance of civil society groups would be critical to the efficacy of this innovation.
- Penalties for convicted offenders must be exacted in full. To convict criminals then release them within weeks encourages corruption.
- A fiscally federalized system of resource allocation would ultimately compel rulers to be more accountable to their proximate constituencies. Localized systems of accountability and citizen vigilance work better than national ones.
- Remove the barriers to credit in the economy. A key motivation for corruption in Nigeria is our 'cash-and -carry' economic system that does not allow for instalmental payment for goods and services. Creating access to credit via credit-rating systems, access to bank loans will help reduce the motivation to steal.
- Citizen Vigilance: We the people must continue to consistently demand transparency from those in authority, because corruption persists only where the people permit it. Taming corruption is a job for every one of us. Taking the time to register and actually casting your vote on Election Day is probably the biggest effort you can make in the fight against corruption. By voting candidates with the best anti-corruption credentials and holding them to their words, we would be using our most potent weapon- democracy- to fight a national malaise.
In the final analysis, we do not expect these measures to completely halt the cancer of corruption. But corruption can and must be defeated if Nigeria is to have any chance for structured political and economic development.
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The StandPoint is the consensual position of the NVS editorial board.
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