Chief Executive/Founder, CSR-in-Action
Board member, GRI Amsterdam
A
government's ability to deliver its political mandate - strengthen the economy,
ameliorate health and living challenges of its citizens, ensure the security of
lives and property, maintain the rule of law, and sustain social cohesion -
depends not just on the resources at its disposal, but how effectively they are
utilised.
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Issues
of emergency management, either in the form of natural disasters or global
outbreaks, are some of the unforeseen contingencies that governments,
unfortunately, need to grapple with. Sadly, humanitarian relief and reconstruction
efforts which usually come with the influx of funds, goods and services
following such crisis, are particularly vulnerable to corruption and have a
high chance of being subject to waste and mismanagement. Countries that,
however, put adequate response frameworks in place end up effectively managing
the situation.
While
some countries, especially in the developing world grouping, contend with
misappropriation and mismanagement of emergency funds, others are making
progress towards effective emergency management, most notably through a shift
from a primary focus on disaster relief to a more holistic approach that
emphasises preparedness and prevention measures.
Whilst
it is not permissible for citizens to tolerate any form of opacity in the
spending of public funds, it is even more irremissible to allow any frivolity
in the utilisation of goodwill donations particularly those made towards
fighting an unfortunate scourge as the coronavirus pandemic.
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This
was what informed my article of April 14, 2020, titled ‘COVID-19 Pandemic and the Goodwill of Nigerians’, where I urged
transparency and efficiency in the management and administration of COVID-19
donations by asking that the government presents a publicly available and
accessible platform that would enable citizens easily track COVID-19 donations
and disbursement and to establish a team of trusted and capable people to
manage all such. In my ensuing Channels TV interview, I also spoke about the
need for the process to be iterative.
It is,
therefore, highly commendable that the Federal Government (FG) recognised the
expectations of citizens. To cement this step and other behind the scenes
meetings, was the recent release of a detailed Framework for the Management of
COVID-19 Funds in Nigeria under the Treasury
Single Account (TSA) by Office of the Accountant-General
of the Federation (OAGF); a very welcome development. This is in line with
international best practice as espoused in a recent article by Richard Allen, Emre Balibek, Yasemin Hurcan
and Sandeep Saxena, entitled ‘Government Cash Management Under Fiscal
Stress’, published in the IMF’s
Public Financial Management blog (designed to help IMF member countries
address the economic effects of COVID-19) on May 11, 2020. In it, the foursome
recommends that “Cash consolidation will help in
pooling all the cash at the disposal of the treasury, facilitating its best
possible use under highly stressed fiscal conditions. Governments that have a
functional Treasury Single Account structure in place could look for any
available opportunities to further expand the TSA coverage and to improve the
speed with which cash flows through the system.”
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The
OAGF framework avers that in addition to the main account of the Coalition
Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) sitting at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), President Buhari has approved the opening
of five COVID-19 Donor Accounts in Zenith Bank, Access Bank, Guaranty Trust
Bank, United Bank for Africa and First Bank, to form part of the existing
TSA arrangement. For the benefit of those who have not sighted the framework, I
will highlight some other salient points below.
In
what seems to be very clear moves to establish financial probity, the framework
explicitly states that accounts with the aforementioned banks will be linked
with the TSA through CBN's current payment gateway, Remita. This is to provide
a consolidated view of aggregate government cash balances as well as a single
window for real-time access to details of receipts and disbursement of the
funds from any of the accounts. In
addition, all funds are to be appropriated by the National Assembly directly to
participating ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and not to
intermediary agencies like the Presidential Task Force (PTF). This process
gives us citizens a ground to call to question any perceived anomaly in
government’s handling of the monies and has sent a strong precedence for the
management and administration of donations in Nigeria going forward.
Furthermore,
the framework asserts that the Office of the Accountant General of the
Federation shall publish a Daily Treasury Statement for COVID-19 Fund outlining
all inflows, including its source, and outflows to a properly identified MDA.
All very commendable initiatives aimed at showing the federal government’s
commitment to increasing trust of its citizenry.
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While
I am excited at the prospect of what the framework brings, I remain concerned
about the silence on the step-by-step utilisation of the funds. How much has
actually been received thus far by the Federal Government and CBN? What are the actual initiatives
that are to be actioned and prioritised? Will the funds be channelled into
upgrading healthcare facilities as suggested at meeting between the Finance
Minister, Zainab Ahmed, House of
Representatives Speaker, Femi
Gbajabiamila and Senate President, Ahmad
Lawan, which held on the 4th of May, 2020? Or has that plan changed? If so,
it would be good to let the governed know. Citizens across traditional and
social media platforms are already clamouring for the Federal Government to
emulate Lagos State by publishing names of all donors. While the CBN released a
while back, it is not clear whether that list has changed and what other
contributions have been made to the FG.
In the
same vein, although I initially found it somewhat befuddling that we needed to
create a brand new framework for handling goodwill disaster funding the failure
that was the handling of the 2012 flood disaster, under the Goodluck Jonathan government, could be
proof that we did not have any such guidance – at least not one updated to
handle our 21st-century challenges. It may be recalled that about three years
following that natural disaster, a report on Flood Intervention and Rehabilitation Funds was submitted to the Office of the Auditor General of the
Federation (OAuGF) by non-governmental organisations BudgIT and Society
Initiative for West Africa, and Nigerians were aghast to discover that the
Federal Government had provided about N17.6 billon; with another $50,000 coming
from the Government of Canada, $649,270 from the Government of Japan, $30,000 from
the Government of Norway, $490,000 from the Government of Sweden, $9.4m from
the European Commission and $1.8 million from private individuals, with little
or no significant achievement to show whether or not all or some of the funds
had been applied towards managing that intervention.
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A
third concern that I have is the bureaucracy and attendant dawdling that
appropriation will bring to the situation, despite the improved transparency it
promises. This can, however, be managed through the proper forward-thinking
planning required to keep the process nimble and effective, and the fact that
the FG has fingered the revolutionary TSA tool as the platform for collection
of funds means that it will be able to determine the sum-total of monies
available in real-time. It is unarguable that the Federal Government deserves
some applause for developing a strategy for managing COVID-19 donations. While
the cacophony roars on, however, it behoves the President, the Finance
Minister, the legislature, the OAGF, CBN and all relevant authorities to
further codify its integrous intent by tweaking the framework – or developing
an all-encompassing crisis management framework - such that it caters to
engaging, mobilising, operationalising, communicating and sustaining efforts at
managing major incidents.
Financial
transparency, accountability and probity are critical for the efficient
functioning of a modern economy and for fostering social well-being without
which there will be a compelling lack of trust between the Federal Government
and us citizens. The result would be social instability and an environment that
is counterproductive to economic growth. Again, I end with the trust that we
have a government that listens and seeks the best outcomes for its citizenry.
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The Good Citizen Relief Packages
Our
sincere gratitude to Diageo (Guinness
Nigeria Plc) for the provision of 1,500 cases of non-alcoholic drinks to
support our cause to distribute ‘The Good Citizen Relief Packages' to
vulnerable individuals affected by the #lockdown in a bid to curb the impact of
COVID19.
In the
coming week, with the additional support from FIVE Foundation, Odegua Mbonu, Mr. Francis Duru and Emmanuel Yussuf we
will be reaching out to 40 families, who responded to our calls. They will
receive food items as well as drinks supplied by Diageo. We have also
distributed 25 cases of drinks to staff at the Eti-Osa 3 Local Government and
worked with them to distribute a total of 790 cases of drinks on Thursday, 14
May, 2020, to the community members at Ikate, Gbara and Igbo-Efon.
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The
leaders of each community appreciated the effort of Diageo (Guinness Nigeria
Plc) and other supporters for the items delivered to them to aid their survival
during this period. While we continue to distribute our relief packages with a
case of drink each to the vulnerable, particularly the aged and have-nots
across Lagos State, you may reach to us to support in any way you can as there
are people who have been badly affected by the effects to the COVID19
restrictions.
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