Subsidy Fraud: Wao!!!

You hardly know where to begin to appreciate the enormity of this world record act of criminality. Is it the size of the amount involved? Is it the star-quality of the personalities indicted? Or is it the callous indifference with which it was carried out? Apparently the perpetrators of this sordid economic opportunism were so […]

You hardly know where to begin to appreciate the enormity of this world record act of criminality. Is it the size of the amount involved? Is it the star-quality of the personalities indicted? Or is it the callous indifference with which it was carried out? Apparently the perpetrators of this sordid economic opportunism were so sure of getting away with their crime they didn’t even bother to honour their crookedness with at least a semblance of pretense. They were brazen, crude and audacious, relaxed in the absolute certainty that they were covered and protected by judge, jury and prosecutor.

Nobody can say with any degree of certainty exactly how much is involved, but the final figure from the Farouk Lawan committee, which is N2.5 trillion is, or should be, the most authoritative. But even this figure is an approximation, because the committee itself admitted that part of the technique employed by the indicted persons and organizations is the deliberate neglect to keep proper and reliable records of transactions. Also the committee’s investigations covers only the period between 2009 to 2011. What had happened before then perhaps may never be known until God-knows-when. To put the amount purported to have been spent on subsidy within the investigated period in perspective, here is what it represents: it is almost twice the federal budget for 2003 (N1.446 trillion) and higher than the federal budget for 2007 (N2.3 trillion). According to the committee nearly half of that amount (N1.07 trillion) was stolen by the NNPC, PPRA, and 72 other privately owned organizations generally and dubiously referred to as “Oil Marketers”.

Nobody is really surprised that an administratively and financially opaque government organizations such as the NNPC and PPPRA emerged as the nucleus of this sustained act of criminality. But nobody thought that anybody could be so crude as to pay an unidentified or unidentifiable entity the sum of N999m an incredible 128 times! Or that a refuse disposal firm can be a beneficiary of a subsidy payment it has no business with. At this point you begin to wonder who is really the criminal between the creature doing the payment, and the lucky creature doing the receiving.

Which brings us to the next important question. What now? Well, we all know that those who expect heads to roll over this matter might end up losing their own heads instead. So the first rational thing to do is to be realistic about what WILL NOT happen. Heads would not roll; the last time any heads rolled over corruption was nearly 20 years ago. This was in 1993 during the interim government of Chief Earnest Shonekan. Incidentally, the Shonekan government had paraded about half a dozen staff of (yes!) NNPC over corruption. They were subsequently relieved of their jobs. By 2003, one of those indicted by the Shonekan government, Funsho Kupolokun, was rehabilitated and appointed the group managing director (GMD) of the same NNPC, only for him to be removed unceremoniously in 2007. Again sometime in 2010, the new GMD of the NNPC Austin Oniwon shocked the nation by declaring that the corporation was broke because it was owed N1.5 trillion by the presidency. This is the thing: it is the presidency that can implement the recommendations of the Ad-Hoc committee. Lets say you were the presidency, what would you do? This explains the mind boggling audacity of the indicted looters.

Next in line of useful questions is what to do, as an academic exercise, with those who approved the payments. Lets quickly ask the Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (I wish the lady would find a less cumbersome title to carry), Dr Ngozi-Okonja Iweala. By hurriedly terminating the services of the audit firms that “recommended” the payments, are we to assume that that is their punishment? While speaking about NNPC’s bankruptcy, Oniwon pointedly indicted the ministry of finance; were the auditing firms the culprits? And are we supposed to cheer now that they have been sacked? Let’s not overlook the fact that the Lawan committee did not indict those firms for anything. Can anyone imagine Mrs. Iweala’s or her predecessors’ head rolling over anything?

But by far the most damming indictment is that of Dankwambo, former Accountant-General of the Federation and currently the governor of Gombe state. This really is the beauty and strength of this report. The fact that it is unambiguous makes it one of the most useful documents of its type (and there are legions of them). Laymen like us have always suspected that the key to understanding, and solving, the nation’s corruption problem lies between the trio of the accountant-general, the minister of finance and the governor of the central bank. Now that at least one leg of the triangle is fingered, directly, it is only a matter of time before the triangle tips over.

Thereafter, the real problem would be exposed. It does not matter, at this point, whether the presidency acts on the recommendations of this brave committee report or not. After all another shocking revelation about the looting of pension funds and the scandals that led to the collapse of the capital market, grave as they are, are already receding in our memories. For most of us it is enough progress that we are getting to know, in specific terms, who are the vampires sucking us dry, and then using the proceeds to penetrate deeper into our veins and suck us to death. They didn’t know that this day would come. That is how judgement day would come to them: unexpectedly. Just wait and you will see.