The Nation Newspaper

Tag: not enough

  • Not enough

    •Yes, short-changed Nigerians must struggle to throw off present shackles. But anarchy comes from ‘struggle’ without structure

    RADICAL thinker, Prof. Olusegun Osoba, of the old University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) fame, was his old furious self when he declared, rather sensationally in Lagos on April 23, that what Nigeria needed was “struggle”, not “restructuring”. But can “struggle” get any purposeful result without a deliberate structure?

    It was at the public presentation of the Minority Report of the Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1976, which Osoba co-authored with the late Dr. Bala Usman, of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  The “50 wise men” Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) was convoked by Military Head of State, Gen. Murtala Muhammed, to write a future constitution for Nigeria, as part of the government’s transition to civil rule programme.

    One of the nominated members, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, turned down the offer, thus reducing the membership to 49.  Of the 49 members, 47 agreed on the Majority Report. But two, Osoba and Usman, demurred, writing instead, the Minority Report. But new Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who received the reports, after the February 1976 assassination of Muhammed, ignored the Minority Report and went on to base the 1979 Constitution on the recommendation of the CDC majority, subject to amendments by the Justice Udo Udoma-chaired Constituent Assembly, later assembled to finish work on what was to become the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    At the Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, Zaria (CDDRT)-sponsored presentation in Lagos, Dr. Abubakar Siddique, its director, lamented: “Our people have sunk into a very deep level of desperation. Corruption level is unbelievably high. We live in a country that is extremely unjust.” Various indices indicate that claim is most probably true. Dr. Siddique also claimed that Nigeria had not addressed any of the challenges the CDC minority report identified 43 years ago, implying that if it had, the country would probably have been better run today.  That too might be true.

    It was in the midst of the general jeremiad, not unexpected at such occasions, that Prof. Osoba launched into the lamentation about restructuring. Restructuring is “a lie” he declared. He also doubted the sincerity of those advocating “resource control”, yet another variant of the omnibus “restructuring”, as is “fiscal federalism”. But all of these are driven by the “self-interest” of parts of the country that feel short-changed; and therefore cry out for peaceful and rational solutions.  It is one context “self-interest” is not negative; and can’t just be equated with, and dismissed as, selfish craving. Self-interest, after all, drives human and group actions.

    So, though Osoba was right to have questioned the report card of Niger Delta governors who gross 13 per cent derivation with little to show and yet holler “resource control!”, that still doesn’t completely negate restructuring, as a campaign for wealth creation, with prime reward for the creators; against the present resource-sharing order, where everyone awaits a dole.

    “All nations of the world … have at one point or the other in their history,” the old radical thinker thundered, “removed the hands of looters from their treasury and put themselves in the hands of reliable and working honest people. So,” he added, “there is no ambiguity about it: a continuous struggle is the only solution to our problems, not restructuring.”

    That could well be true. But struggle and structure are not mutually exclusive; just as restructuring assumes there is a structure that needs re-tinkering. So, to get the best orderly and peaceful results, struggle must complement structure. Otherwise, anarchy looms, from which nobody gains – and the classic example was the French Revolution, which though guillotined an old order, birthed new disorders.

  • Training not enough

    We should transform the economy if we must stop brain drain

    The national stress of watching able-bodied youth as well as middle-age professionals leave our borders in waves began about three decades ago. Today, it is even worse. Many Nigerians who have lost their nerves and verve as citizens have turned their belief to other lands, leaving the country to wait for more waves.

    These days many eye Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and some Asian nations because of the scrutiny of visas in the United States and Great Britain.

    Recently, Nigerians were a big part of the continental scandal of migrants fleeing poverty and misery in their country by risking death and destruction travelling on turbulent waters as passengers on precarious boats to Europe. Before that, they travelled through miles of a desert plagued by bandits, shysters and opportunists. The dramas of their return scarred a country that cannot give a reliable data of how many died or were lost in the escapade of desperadoes.

    To discourage this trend, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCRMI) has flagged off a programme to train young and enthusiastic Nigerians in skills that can make them self-employed and profitable. The initiative will take place across the country, but it has already started in the Surulere and Yaba areas of Lagos. Soon it will happen in Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State, and the northeast.

    According to NCRMI’s southwest zonal head, Margaret Ukegbu, the programme is “the most practical and result-oriented way of empowering these returnees and persons of concern to become self-sufficient and self-sustaining.”

    At the end of the training, the commission will issue each of the trainees a certificate and seed money to trigger their businesses. They are starting with 2,000 beneficiaries.

    The skills administered to the trainees include cosmetology, phone repairs, soap making and photography. We cannot but commend the Federal Government and its agency, NCRMI, for nurturing entrepreneurial acumen in fellow citizens.

    The principal reason of the efflux of talent from Nigeria is to secure the proverbial Golden Fleece. The main definition of it is jobs. Many want a sense of self-worth, and having a place to work and earn a living wage would discourage any such flow of humans out of a place. That quite a few of the young have taken part with eagerness underscores why creating jobs cannot be overstated.

    In the just-concluded presidential campaigns, the contending parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), as well as the other lesser known ones promised to give job creation a boost by making it a priority. But it is no mean task.

    About half a million Nigerians graduate from tertiary institutions every year, and an increasing number of young people graduate in European, American and Canadian universities. According to a 2016 report by Jobberman, a recruiting agency in West Africa, about 47 percent of Nigerian graduates had no jobs. It is worse even today. The numbers swell year-on-year as the unemployed in one year add to the next year.

    Nigeria has the top number of migrants on the African continent, and about seven million leave the continent every year. Nothing demonstrates its potency more than in the medical field in which 12 doctors migrate to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States every week, according to the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD). That means close to two doctors leave Nigeria every day. This is an emergency. The doctors also claim that less than 40,000 resident doctors practice in Nigeria. This figure is a boon as 88 percent of these medical experts want to leave to join their fellow professionals abroad.

    For a nation dealing with avoidable deaths daily, especially from such illnesses as malaria and typhoid, it shows that the problem of development puts Nigeria in a low scale among failing states of the world. Nigeria is also listed among nine African nations that lose $2 billion yearly training doctors who benefited other lands.

    Other than medical doctors, many institutions abroad have nurses and pharmacists. We also have Nigerians who are by far under-employed because of their skin colour and accent and country of origin.

    Yet, they leave. It means efforts by successive governments to provide jobs have fallen abysmally short of the jobless rate. The figures of tertiary institutions graduates are high enough, but the numbers of high school and other lower educational graduates are even higher. The only answer is a drastic approach to the economy that disrupts the now staid outlook of gradualism.

    The Buhari administration’s approach of roads and railways are commendable, but we need greater pace so as to engender more jobs.

    The NCRMI training programme only tackles a small part of a big and expanding challenge. We must show a radical sense of solution. If the migrant crisis in Libya and the high seas looked outward, it may be even more turbulent if they are trapped here and decide to take an insurgent tack on their challenges and make life difficult for those among us who think life in Nigeria is peaceful enough for them.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo called them a time bomb. For sure, it is ticking.

  • 13% derivation not enough to develop Niger Delta, says Dickson

    Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson yesterday said the 13% derivation principle was a mockery of  the yearnings and aspirations of the people of the Niger Delta.

    The governor said the 13 percent derivation was not enough to develop the Niger Delta region.

    A statement issued by Dickson ‘s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Francis Agbo said the governor spoke  on Tuesday during a live media chat in Ijaw language in Government House Yenagoa.

    The governor argued that only restructuring would guarantee sustainable peace, stability and development in the Niger Delta and other parts of the country.

    He lamented that the people of the region particularly the Ijaws were being treated as second class citizens in the country, as their resources were  exploited by the Federal Government and its agencies.

    He said: “I have said it time and time again that the 13% derivation  they are giving to us can never be enough to tackle our development needs at the pace we want. And that, restructuring is the only veritable means to achieve sustainable peace, stability and prosperity not only in this our region but throughout the country.

    “For how long will the Federal Government and indeed all the supporters of this great injustice continue to treat us as slaves? What they call oil blocs are our ancestral lands but we are the people that are excluded from the ownership and use of this our God-given property.

    “Take Bayelsa, for instance, where the Federal Government is doing almost nothing to support our development effort. We are the ones building all our schools, hospitals, roads and bridges to link our communities in this state. Is that fair?

    “That is why I expect every right thinking Ijaw or Niger Delta person and true Nigerians to support our clamour for restructuring because that is the right thing to do so that every part of our country will have a sense of belonging.”

    On the ongoing state public service reforms, the governor restated the need for  Bayelsans to discountenance the propaganda and blackmail orchestrated by detractors, stressing that no genuine worker would be adversely affected.

    He said through continuous verification and other measures, his administration pruned down the over bloated wage bill of about N6bn  it inherited at inception of his government  to N3.8bn at the end of last month.

    Dickson who urged the people not to see civil service as the best occupation, assured them of government preparedness to assist them go into commerce and other private businesses, which he noted, are more lucrative.

    He called for more support and prayers for the success of the reforms and other programmes adding that he had directed the appropriate government officials to announce the commencement of the recruitment of 1000 graduates into the public service by next week.

    Dickso assured Bayelsans of fairness and transparency in the recruitment process.

    The governor asked the public to report any government official who indulges in nepotism and other sharp practices that would jeopardize his administration’s goal of leaving behind an efficient and result-oriented civil service.

     

  • Not enough

    •FG’s decision to hire additional 6,000 policemen is good but we need a comprehensive reform of the force

    President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered hiring of 6,000 constables to supplement what is officially estimated as 291,685 existing officers to police the country’s 195 million citizens. In terms of statistical evidence and citizens’ anecdotes about the police and the general atmosphere of insecurity across the country, more especially killings of citizens, increasing the staff strength of the police force is logical. What is puzzling is why the President has been unable to get to the first phase of recruitment since he made the promise of adding 10,000 police two years ago.

    For too long, Nigeria has been far below the UN benchmark for citizen-police ratio of 300 police to 100,000 citizens. Even after adding 6,000 to the current 291,685, and overriding the order to stop withdrawing about 150,000 police currently released by the force to serve very important private citizens, the country will still be behind very many countries in terms of UN recommendation on citizen-police ratio. In view of this, the government and the police authorities should work out an arrangement for regular and sustained recruitment of policemen. We had thought the country had about 371,000 policemen until a few weeks ago when we were told that about 81,000 of them were ghost policemen. If we must expand or increase the police training colleges across the country, this should be done without delay.

    The increasing rate of killings by armed men gives the impression that the police are overwhelmed. Hiring and training of additional law enforcers could not have come at a better time. Certainly, selecting 6,000 out of over 130,000 applicants is bound to be an onerous task for recruiters, but it is reassuring that, pre-qualified applicants are required to sit for an aptitude test to be organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to, according to police spokesperson, “ensure transparency and get the best out of the candidates.” In addition to a credible selection process, it is important that proper character audit is carried out on each candidate who scales through the test, as the job of a law enforcement officer requires men and women of integrity, fairness, and probity.

    Rigorous and proper training for new officers is crucial and will require adequate training facilities to cater for what seems to be the largest single recruitment exercise. Such training needs to apply to acquisition of technical skills to fight or prevent crime as well as to ensuring that trainees acquire the right emotional intelligence required of law enforcers in a multilingual and multicultural society. The decision to hire such a huge number of policemen is likely to affect policing. It should stop or reduce involvement of military personnel in law enforcement, a practice that has periodically caused tension between soldiers and citizens, and between police and soldiers.

    Beyond the numerical strengthening of the police, reform of the entire police system has to be given immediate attention. Recently, improper deployment of police officers has come to national attention when about 150,000 of the 291,685 police force are allocated to private citizens. A policy to withdraw such policemen to protect citizens at large was later withdrawn, raising the issue of how many police are available to protect public order.

    Improvement of police welfare, supply of modern equipment to make policing efficient and effective, and giving law enforcement officers the right emotional intelligence to make policemen and women work as friends of citizens are reforms that should complement staff increase.

    Above all, the call by citizens in respect of levels of law enforcement in a federal and multicultural system ought to be a part of the reform of the police system. The presidency and the ruling party ought to address this important issue as part of a comprehensive plan to create a modern police system in our culturally diverse society.

  • Suarez: When talent is not enough

    SIR: Uruguayan born football whiz kid, Louis Suarez is, no doubt, a talented footballer. Last season, before he finally agreed to stay with his club, Liverpool FC of England, he was a subject of fierce transfer speculations as major clubs in Europe jostled to snap him from the service of Liverpool FC. Though he started the 2013/14 English Premier League (EPL) season late, having earlier been suspended for nine matches, Suarez still emerged the highest goal scorer with 31 goals. Not only that, for his amazing exploits on the field of play, he was overwhelmingly voted the EPL Player of the Season. Such is the unbelievable strength of Suarez talent.

    As he does for his club, so also he does for his Uruguay national team. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Suarez was partially part of the reason Uruguay got to the semi-final, breaking the hearts of many Ghanaians, and indeed, Africans, in the process. He has equally repeated his heroic acts for his country at the on- going World Cup in Brazil when he single handedly took England to the cleaners, scoring two great goals in their Group D second match.

    It is, however, unfortunate that Suarez has not been able to properly leverage on his mercurial footballing talent with some of his disgusting on-field acts. Rather than being remembered for his footballing exploits, the sheer mention of Suarez’s name, ironically, now evokes bad memories as a result of his numerous shameful acts of biting fellow players on the field.  At Holland, Suarez was involved in a brawl involving players from his erstwhile team, Ajax Amsterdam and PSV Eindhoven in a Dutch league match during which he bit a PSV player, Bakkal, on the neck. Also, in the closing stages of a 2012/2013 EPL game between his team, Liverpool FC  and Chelsea FC,  Ivanovic and Suarez jostled for the ball in the penalty area, to which Suarez responded by biting the Serbian defender on the arm.

    As if he has not done enough havoc to the game, Suarez recently made a hat-trick of biting during a Brazil 2014 World Cup game against Italy when he bit Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini, on the shoulder during a penalty area scuffle.

    Football is, without doubt, a contact sport that involves physical struggles. There are, however, boundaries that players should not cross. Suarez has flouted the rules of the game on numerous occasions. His inability to turn a new leaf in spite of numerous sanctions in the past is simply an indication that his talent is not enough to make him a legend of the game.

    The Suarez case has clearly brought to fore the limitations of talent in man’s quest for excellence in life’s pursuit. There have been numerous cases of highly talented people, in diverse spheres of life, who still failed to achieve optimal success in life. The late Whitney Houston was blessed with amazing singing talent but ended up a failure in spite of her endowment.  Former World Heavy Weight Boxing Champion, ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, became a multimillionaire before he clocked age 20. He, however, through his riotous lifestyle, squandered all the fortune amassed from boxing and today remains heavily indebted. In our clime, the name Etim Esin rings a ball, at least for football lovers. At the height of his footballing glory, Etim was compared to Argentine Soccer prodigy, Maradona. Such was the depth of his talent. Unfortunately, Etim blew it with his unruly style of life. Music genius, Majek Fashek, is today a shadow of his former self because he couldn’t properly manage his God given music talent.

    Talent is God-given. Talent, however, is not enough in the path to success.  According to American author, H. Jackson Brown Jr., best known for his inspirational book, ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book’,   ”talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There is plenty of movement, but you never know if it is going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” How apt!

    • Tayo Ogunbiyi

     Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • Not enough

    Not enough

    ONE item that would be hard to miss in the 2012 annual report of the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, is the rather extravagant picture of flow of credit from the banking sector to the economy. Aside presenting a definitive rebuttal of the charge which appears to have stuck over the years, that the banking sector has been largely unresponsive to the credit needs of the real sector, it generally painted a picture of a banking sector finally coming to its own after years of restructuring.

    The statistics is probably meant to say that things are beginning to look up. For instance, whereas in 2011, the total loans volume was N7.27tn, in 2012, it jumped to N8.15tn – a leap by 12.10 per cent.

    There are of course other indications aside the absolute numbers. Loan performance appears to have improved appreciably during the period. Whereas the volume of Non Performing Loans (NPL) was N360.07bn in 2011, it fell to N286.09bn – a net decline of 20.55 per cent.

    Overall, the picture is however a mixed bag. First, the breakdown of the sectoral allocation is revealing of disproportionate allocation to sectors with very minimal local value addition. As one would expect, the lion’s share of credit went to the oil and gas sector with N1.912tn; followed by manufacturing (N1.185tn); general (N977.20bn); commerce (N813.40bn); information and communication (N722.87bn). The public sector (governments) got N640.06bn, real estate N376.58bn; while agriculture, forestry and fishing got distant allocation of N293.09bn. These sectors account for 84.93 per cent of total credits to the economy as against 83.53 per cent in 2011.

    The other revelation is no less instructive. Only seven of the 20 banks in the country managed to pool a whopping 80.73 per cent of the total loans in 2012. In the preceding year, the seven banks accounted for 68.22 per cent of the total loan stock. The banks are First Bank, Zenith Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc, EcobankPlc and Skye Bank Plc. The other banks make up the difference of 19.27 per cent.

    We certainly welcome the growing numbers if only because the economy needs all the credit to keep afloat and to expand.

    However, the problems are deeper and indeed more complex than the absolute growth in loan volumes suggest. To start with, it is known that the greatest issue in the financial services industry today is the cost of credit. The fact remains that those sectors considered as being in direst need of cash are often those in the least position to get it. If we may be more specific, it explains why the oil and gas sector – with their sometimes incredibly fast turn-around cycles – are the preferred destination of most of the credit, whereas a sector like agriculture, or infrastructure financing, or the small scale business for that matter, with longer gestation periods but with greater, proven potentials to stimulate the economy and generate employment in the short, medium terms, are least likely to draw much credit.

    The refrain bears repeating that the economy would never get the required lift without the Federal Government tackling the problem. The problem of out-of-control interest rates, ensuring that priority sectors like manufacturing and the housing/construction sector are able to access cheap affordable credit, and ensuring that banks shun their preference for short-term to long-term credit are clearly those for the Bankers Committee and the Federal Government to solve, collectively. What has been missing is the will to tackle the problem headlong.

  • Democracy is not enough

    Democracy is not enough

    Few Nigerians know of a place called Providence, even though most citizens grapple with the idea of the word. Providence the idea fascinates us and not Providence the place.

    But last week, the providence of Africa was the subject of discussion in the city of Providence, in a state called Rhode Island in the United States. The man at the bottom of this is Chinua Achebe, Africa’s leading novelist, who incidentally touched off a tempest with his flawed new book, There was a Country.

    He is a professor at Brown University, a member of the American Ivy league and one of the best schools in the world. He started the Chinua Achebe Colloquium, a talk shop of the world’s top exponents on Africa to chart a new way out of the ennui and tragic turbulence of a people.

    It was my first attendance, and it was a feast of ideas, if the menu did not always flatter the mental palate. A wide range of persons spoke, from university professors from such upscale schools as Harvard to institutes like the Centre for Strategic and International Studies to a businessman like Mohammed Ibrahim to men of power like our own Babatunde Raji Fashola(SAN), the governor of example and chief executive of Lagos State.

    The presence of two speakers resonated throughout the event, and they were Mo Ibrahim and Governor Fashola, in earnest because of the positions they advanced. Achebe, aplomb in his wheelchair, never uttered a word throughout the conference, maintaining an avuncular aloofness from the friendly affray of the sessions. He did not only not convey what he felt, he did not want his enveloping silence ruffled with interaction. It was an irony of a convener, a magnet that attracted without being touched.

    Even when Fashola stirred the hall with incisive comments about his new book, the most Achebe did was the lofty mannerism of touching his eyeglass and a little tic of his face and movement of the head. It seemed, at the hoary age of 82, Achebe was only interested in vocalising through his most potent forte: the written word.

    Mo Ibrahim came across, in spite of his wealth and status, with a touching modesty, interacting with everyone as much as he could before he left. He spoke with great passion about the failing of his continent. He noted that for a continent with so much promise, it is failing in all the important indices of governance, which included the rule of law, economic performance, participation and transparency, and gender issues.

    His speech was, however, significant for a question he propounded. He wanted the audience to tell him the leaders of Cape Verde, Botswana and Mozambique. Few could answer. But everyone knew who Mobutu, Idi Amin, Abacha and Mugabe were. He lamented that we did not celebrate what good we interred in our African bones. These three countries had great indices.

    With due respect to the host, Achebe, Mo Ibrahim said this was no time for poetry, but for facts, for getting our hands dirty to save the continent from the jaws of poverty. He said the conflicts in Africa were about the poor fighting against the poor.

    Fashola’s speech was marked by two main positions. One was the workability of the idea of democracy for development. The second was on Achebe’s book, There was a Country. He took on the prose stylist for provoking a debate of old wounds belonging to a passing generation, and how his generation and the future generations should be left to grapple with challenges not fraught with the divisiveness of his book.

    He felt as a man brought up on Things Fall Apart as one of the diets of his education, he felt engaged with the author and that was why Achebe should allow ethnic disputes between the Igbo and Yoruba be at ease, so the falcon can hear the falconer.

    Going into history, he said both Awo and Ojukwu had moved on, and so should the rest of the country. He argued that some sapient harmonies had been ignored in the tempest. One, the Yoruba did not lay any proprietary claims to abandoned properties after the war. In fact, as somebody pointed out to me as the governor spoke, some Yoruba kept the full rent money for the landlords until the battle field fell silent. Two, that Ojukwu’s property was saved from the grasping lust of the Lagos State military government by the brilliance of a Yoruba lawyer, Tunji Braithwaite. Three, that a Yoruba general married off his daughter to an Igbo. He buttressed this with his family and his uncle who attended school the same day with Ojukwu. Four, that in Lagos State, some of the assets of his administration were Igbo, singling out Ben Akabueze and Joe Igbokwe for mention.

    On the value of democracy, he noted that Africans were not grappling with democracy alone but a series of existential distractions that made democracy to appear like an impediment.

    With insights into history and law, he argued that Africans had yet to come to terms with the anachronisms of kings and conquerors in a modern world of cooperative living. Yet we cannot ignore our past, and that is where his speech fascinates.

    African roots with the traditional obeisance, zest for divinities and the fear to experiment have often killed a greed for the future. Adam Smith had argued centuries ago that societies with big families under a patriarch would always abide with tyrannies.

    Our extended family system with the power of one man has reflected in the entire democratic experiments of our people. What complicates it is the inevitability of modernisation: the rise of the city, capitalism, the modern bureaucracy, the clash of culture at the linguistic and social levels. These are breaking down the family structure while we resist them. That is why in one breath we accept democracy and in another resist it.

    We cannot look beyond our ethnic cleavages or the big man syndrome in our politics. Democracy will not come a la carte. We must be ready for the sacrifices. So the problem is not that democracy will not work, but it is not enough. We see democracy only as election. It is beyond that. It is about a culture. A culture that is corrupt cannot produce a vibrant democracy.

    It is like administering a pill for malaria. You have to use it with the necessary nourishment of food, rest, hydration, room temperature, etc, before the quinine will work. Otherwise, you will keep blaming the drug instead of the man.

    “Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone. But when it dies, it bringeth forth new fruits,” said Jesus Christ. What parts of our culture are we ready to let die in order to enjoy the fruits of democracy?

    As Mo Ibrahim said, countries like Cape Verde and Botswana are African and they are good models. Why not Nigeria? The fault is not in democracy, but in our culture. It takes leaders to save us from this fixation on kings and predators and fear of opposition when we win. Mo Ibrahim gave an example of a Cape Verde leader who, having no home or money, returned to his mother’s home after losing the election. He organised and won the next time. It is with such leaders that democracy delivers dividends.

  • N1.3b ‘not enough’ for State House refreshments, meals

    N1.3b ‘not enough’ for State House refreshments, meals

    Perm Sec defends Presidency’s 2013 budget

     

    Senators were stunned yesterday to learn that the N1, 305 billion earmarked for the Presidency in the 2013 budget for refreshments, meals and other miscellaneous expenses is insufficient.

    In the budget, N1,305, 292, 050 is set aside for refreshment, meals and other miscellaneous expenses.

    State House Permanent Secretary Mr. Emmanuel Ogbile spoke on the estimate when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs to defend the N14. 7 billion Presidency budget proposal for 2013.

    A breakdown of the miscellaneous sub-head indicates that N203,752,432 is allocated to refreshment and meals while N107,412,768 is set aside for honorarium and sitting allowance.

    Besides, N37, 277, 825 is for publicity and advertisement.

    Medical expenses have been allocated N50,308,546, Postage and courier services N10,035,583, welfare packages N195,066,223, subscription to professional bodies N4,589,793 and sporting activities will take N32,910,730.

    Overtime is allocated N250,455,589. Feeding of animals, including animal supplements for the veterinary clinic, is voted N30,584,144. Summit/ extra ordinary sessions, including the United Nations, African Union, ECOWAS, and others, will take N228,112,862. National Youth Service Corps(NYSC), IT, LOCUM, housemanship and contract staff allowances are estimated to cost N144,788,555.

    To a member of the Committee, Senator Isa Galaudu, the amount is “outrageous”.

    He noted that the country’s budget in one year is what South Africa spends in five years.

    But Ogbile replied that the proposed amount is not enough.

    Ogbile said: “I have taken pains to explain that this money is not just to fund the residence of the President and that of the Vice President.

    “The experience I have had is that this fund is grossly insufficient. It’s not even enough.”

    The Permanent Secretary said: “The Federal Executive Council (FEC) holds every Wednesday and we take care of them through this budget”.

    He also listed other expenses that are taken care of in the refreshments and meals vote to include National Economic Council (NEC), Council of State, conferences in the Banquet Hall, presidential retreats, National Merit Award, Children’s Day and hosting of dignitaries.

    Committee Chairman Senator Dahiru Kuta promptly reminded the Permanent Secretary that the Merit Award has its own budget.

    Ogbile laboured to devise another explanation to support the budget.

    He insisted that based on the long list of functions and activities under the Presidency, “the amount of N1.305 billion is not enough.”

    He said: “Distinguished senators, I have taken time to explain what the fund is meant for. I say with all sense of responsibility that the fund is not enough, based on what the fund is meant for.”

    Kuta said the committee would consider the proposal on its merit.