President Buhari announced yesterday that he has ordered a comprehensive audit of all Nigeria’s revenue generating agencies, in a process which would hopefully show how government’s past revenues were earned and spent and may be proffer solutions for better management of the state’s resources, going forward.
In addition to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) which is currently undergoing intense reforms, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ), Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and Nigerian Communications Communications(NCC) are agencies being audited, Buhari said on Thursday in his maiden independence speech for Nigeria’s 55th Anniversary, which many analystsl say lack economic policy direction.
The President said that the audit became critical owing to how huge government resources were carelessly spent in the past.
“We have seen in the last few years how huge resources were mismanaged, squandered and wasted.
“The new APC government is embarking on a clean up, introducing prudence and probity in public financing,” the president noted.
In the past one year, Nigeria has seen a halving of its revenues as oil prices plunged, but at the same time past leaders have been serially accused of mismanaging even lean available funds.
For instance, the NNPC had been severally accused of withholding substantial part of its earnings, the latest coming from the House of Representatives that the state’s oil corporation failed to remit as much as N3.8trn out of over N8trn revenue it generated just in 2014.
Even the country’s anti-graft agency, the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was recently accused and is being investigated by the Senate for failing to remit over N2trillion recovered from corrupt public office holders in the past.
In another instance, the same EFCC is being accused of not remitting over N1.7billion recovered from 15 companies on behalf of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Buhari believes that the country’s ability to create wealth was increasingly been battered by the lack of prudence, transparency and honesty in the management of public resources by some of those entrusted with the duty of governance and all levels, so much so that in the midst of plenty, Nigerians suffer great deprivation.
While he adressed the nation, President Buhari maintained that Preliminary steps have been taken to sanitize NNPC and improve its operations so that the inefficiency and corruption could be reduced to a minimum.
“Those of our refineries which can be serviced and brought back into partial production would be enabled to resume operations so that the whole sordid business of exporting crude and importing finished products in dubious transactions could be stopped.
“In addition to NNPC, I have ordered a complete audit of our other revenue generating agencies mainly CBN, FIRS, Customs, NCC, for better service delivery to the nation.
He said prudent house-keeping is needed now more than ever in view of the sharp decline in world market oil prices.
“It is a challenge we have to face squarely. But what counts is not so much what accrues but how we manage our resources,” he reiterated.
But even with all the promises embedded in the Independence Day broadcast, mixed reactions have trailed the President’s speech which some economic analysts say lacked explicit economic direction.
Chukwuemeka Eze, an economic analyst said it was hightime the President unveiled his economic team, adding that earlier appointment of ministers would have given policy direction to the country.
To him, the speech falls short of expectations of investors, industrialists, economic analysts and attributed the drop in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to delays in the appointment of ministers and announcement of an economic team, four months after assumption of office. He therefore predicted further decline in the GDP.
Although President Buhari sent the first batch of ministerial list to the Senate on Wednesday, the upper chamber is expected to commence screening and confirmation from next week.
On Buhari’s declaration that he had ordered an audit of revenue generating agencies, Eze said: “It is good that there will be prudence in the management of NNPC but the economy is beyond NNPC.”
According to him, the economy is so broad and the action of the President or the words matter a lot. His opinion is that the President ought to made policy statements that would have been taken home by people that are so much concerned in this area.
His words, “”There are two things that the President should have done better. One, appointing the ministers earlier. That would have given a direction to the country. Two, getting economic team, even temporarily – for them to give direction as to the economic flow of this administration.
“I know these things will be done but as we continue to delay, you will discover that the GDP which was over 3 percent in the first quarter, came down to 2.35 in the second quarter of this year. In the third quarter that has just finished , we will possibly have less than 2.35. And these economic indices have something to do with the body language or silence of the administration towards the economy of the country. So, Nigerians are yearning to hear something about the economy and the earlier the better because delay defeats equity.”
Onyinye Nwachukwu & Owede Agbjileke
