Insolvent Lagos And Accountability Deficit - Rasheed Fashola Transparency and accountability in government are two key indices of good governance in modern day society. Sane members of the public cannot regard a society as being democratic in the absence of these two public virtues, as the implication is that such society labours under the yoke of corruption while its leadership must have developed thick skin to critical observations. Applying the high ideals of transparency and accountability to the state of affairs in Lagos State today, it is difficult to adjudge, in all sincerity, the government of Governor Babatunde Fashola a successful candidate. This may surprise quite a number of people as the general impression is that the government is doing well. The unfortunate aspect of our polity is the public amnesia we quickly fall into whenever an unfortunate event has garnered the dimming passage of a few days. It must be noted that the Lagos State Public Procurement Agency Law (hereinafter referred to as “the Law”) was passed and gazetted in January, 2012 and ought to have been operational ever since. It is quite distressing that the law has not been implemented for one day. The essence of a procurement law is to make government expenditure more transparent, eliminate corruption and reduce waste of public funds. Rather than following due process, the government has been awarding contracts without adherence to the provisions of the Law. It is therefore strange when I read in the newspapers some few days ago that Niger State officials were in Lagos in order to understudy the elegant fraud being perpetrated by the government of Lagos. According to Section 22(1)(a) of the Law, “all procurements carried out by any procuring entity shall be governed by” “public monitoring of the procurement process and the implementation of contracts awarded to ensure that all public contracts are awarded pursuant to the provisions of this Law and its Regulations, and that all public contracts are performed according to specifications.” As a result of default to allow this provision to take effect, members of civil society have written to the government asking pertinent questions as to the amounts for which certain contracts were awarded, the terms under which they were awarded and the stage of implementation of such contracts. Despite the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the Governor has refused to be accountable to anybody as his excellency would not deign so low as to accord such busy-body questions with any response. An astounding revelation that followed was the declaration by the governor that he was not bound by the Freedom of Information Act to make any such disclosure whereas there is no Freedom of Information Law in the State. Coupled with the above is the fact that the governor has never declared the cost of any project whether at the point of commissioning or thereafter. What now happens to the right of public monitoring vested in the people by the provisions of the Public Procurement Law and the right to freedom of information as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999? A disturbing fact is that the State has been awarding contracts at grossly inflated prices without any reverence paid to the provisions of the Law or to the moral injunctions of public probity and accountability. Indicating that corruption is the Chief Law Officer of Lagos State is the fact that there is no official information on the state of indebtedness of Lagos State whereas the State is constantly going cap in hand as if borrowing was likely going out of fashion. While there was a second-guessing of international indebtedness of Lagos to be in the staggering sum of 900 million dollars, no Jupiter can actually say the state of local indebtedness. While Lekki-Ikoyi was said to cost the State the staggering sum of N38 Billion, the House of Assembly’s verification exercise rated the bridge as being not worth more than 7 billion Naira. Whatever happened to 31 Billion Naira is best left to the imagination of the tax payers. It is on record that government contractors who have executed a number of projects for the State are being owed not less than 80 Billion Naira as at present and the government keeps awarding phantom contracts by which huge amounts of money are being siphoned. While the State government spent 1 Billion Naira on bangers and explosives during the New Year Crossover Night, it cannot afford to adequately fund University education and hence, school fees in the Lagos State University (LASU) have to compete with private schools. While Lagos State makes an average of 29 Billion Naira as its monthly revenue, the government is not justifying the disappearances of this whooping sum and the fact that not less than 800 projects are already abandoned notwithstanding that they have been severally awarded and re- awarded. Another dangerous characteristic of this government is nepotism. The government and public service of Lagos State have become an extension of the governor’s family as brothers, sisters and friends of the governor are the ones controlling many parastatals without expected performances. The immediate elder sister of the Governor, Ms. Yinka Fashola, is the one superintending over the on-going residents registration exercise on which nothing less 7 Billion Naira has been expended. Unfortunately, the programme has only succeeded in registering 164,000 people more than a year into the project. It seems Lagosians are getting tired of masked failures of this government. The governor has directed all Local Government officials to start mobilizing the people for the purpose of the resident’s registration exercise at the expense of the Local Government. An official of the agency has suggested the possibility of adopting the records obtained by the All Progressives Congress in its recent membership registration exercise to be adapted into the data for Lagos Residents Registration exercise. Interestingly, we have spent 7 Billion Naira to register only 164,000 people! Mathematically, it translates to N42,682, 926.82 to register one person. Incredible! Thanks to the recent efforts of the various Local Governments in shoring up the figure. Furthermore, one Mrs. Animashahun who heads the Lagos State Building Control Agency is a relative of the governor while one Dr. Mrs. Adesina who calls the shots as the Special Adviser to the Governor is equally a relative of the Governor. One Ms. Azeez, a sister to the closest friend of the Governor, Demola Azeez, heads the EKO Project and directly reports to him. There is hardly any Agency in the State today that the Fashola family or Animashaun Family does not prominently feature. This is aside from the in laws and many relatives of the Governor who have just been imported from the United Kingdom. The question is what is the fate of the civil servants who have been laboring to build a viable Lagos when relatives of the Governor who did not exhibit any sound managerial knowledge or capability are just brought into the country to take over the headship and management of government parastatals and agencies? It is imperative to note that there is no room for legal plunder as being perpetrated by the government of the day in Lagos State. How can one justify the fact that two companies in which the governor has substantial interests, either held through cronies or where his friends hold controlling shareholding, are the ones doing most of the contracts in Lagos State? Plycon Nigeria Limited and Palmyra Nigeria Limited are the tools by which very many contracts have been awarded and re-awarded but remain unexecuted. Little wonder that the Governor, in order to save his face, is just beginning to remove them from some of the failed contracts. The fact that the Governor has interests in these companies is undeniable. Can some other persons in saner climes do what is currently happening in Lagos State without being thrown behind the bars? But as Frederick Bestiat said: “Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve… But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn’t belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay – No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.” We must realize that the failure of government to ameliorate the sufferings of the people; the failure to reduce school fees but rather increasing it to the utter denial of education to the poor masses, is the consequence of the total lack of transparency and accountability in government. It has been alleged and found true by many political leaders in the State that the fund at the personal disposal of Governor Babatunde Fashola at the moment is more than what Asiwaju Bola Tinubu can risk to confront hence the tactical strategy of sly avoidance with which an elder escapes from a charging bull. Can we then continue with this wanton impoverishment of the people by a government that takes so much in taxes but has failed to create jobs to reduce the criminal dependency ratio with its attendant withdrawal of security from our homes and roads? Rasheed Ayinde Fashola President, Zero Corruption Campaign (ZCC), Ikeja, Lagos.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 09:11:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015