The Ahmed Joda transition committee has urged President
Muhammadu Buhari to immediately terminate all dubious appointments made by
former President Goodluck Jonathan in the last nine months, and review all
contracts awarded by the administration in the last 18 months.
The committee said this is to help the new government sidestep
ineptitude and waste, and scale up its revenue base.
The recommendations are part of a portfolio of swift steps Mr.
Buhari must take within three months of assumption of power if he must save
cost and “enhance liquidity”, the committee said in its 800-page report to the
president.
PREMIUM TIMES exclusively obtained volumes of the report, which
contain extensive analyses of Nigeria’s key challenges, with suggested
responses for the economy and finance, governance and social welfare.
The report details a list of prompt, medium and long term
decisions Mr. Buhari must take, or authorise, within 30, 45, 60 and 90 days of
taking office, to create immediate impact, reduce government liability,
increase revenue and stabilise the polity.
For instance, to deal with crippling fuel crisis, and backlog of
unpaid salaries by states and the federal government, the committee advised Mr.
Buhari to “borrow immediately or use CBN (Central Bank) advances” for salaries
and fuel subsidies to “avoid chaos”.
For contracts, it urged the administration to “review all
contracts signed in the last 18 months by FGN”.
“Non-strategic contracts that have not commenced or where no
payments have been made can be cancelled,” the committee said, while also
urging Mr. Buhari to negotiate exits for projects where mobilisation payments
have been made but work not commenced.
That move will “save expenditure on non-strategic projects, and
can free up cash flows for other vital initiatives”, the committee said.
The decision on contract is to be taken within 90 days from May
29, and should be handled by the Federal Executive Council and the Bureau of
Public Procurement, BPP.
At a time Mr. Buhari is facing growing criticism over his delay
in making key appointments, and his failure to lay out initiatives to
assure a burdened nation of immediate relief, the Joda report provides a fresh
perspective on preparations by the new government and the ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC, to confront some of Nigeria’s monstrous problems.
The committee said the president should review all appointments
made by Mr. Jonathan in the last nine months, and “for strategic agencies
requiring professional leadership, the government should terminate all
appointments not based on merit”.
The Joda panel said such move will save costs associated with
poor decision making by an incompetent management team, and must be delivered
within 45 days of the new government.
That recommendation appears to take into consideration the last
minute appointments by Mr. Jonathan after he lost the March 28 elections.
In less than two months, Mr. Jonathan, not previously given to
readily hiring and firing, sacked dozens of top officials and replaced them
before leaving office.
As further measures to check waste and increase efficiency and
accountability, the committee urged the government to quickly implement a
single bank account, to be called Treasury Single Account, and to commence full
implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act within 60 days, and chase up
any outstanding funds from all government offices.
This will curtail the “excesses carried forward from previous
administration”, it noted.
The committee also advised the government to fully implement the
Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, and Integrated
Government Integrated Financial Management Information System across all MDAs
within 60 days.
The two facilities were used by the past government to check
thousands of “ghost workers” who drew billions of naira in salaries that ended
in the pocket of fraudulent officials.
Despite its claim of saving more than N100 billion from “ghost
workers”, the Jonathan administration failed to punish those behind the scam.
Claims by former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that the
case had been transferred to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other
Related Offences Commission (ICPC) alongside names of indicted officials, were
repeatedly refuted by the anti-graft body.
But more than other proposals in that unit of the report, the
committee paid greater attention to government contracts and urged President
Buhari to be decisive in reviewing the deals.
The committee said the handover notes from the Jonathan
administration showed aggregate contractor liabilities of N4 trillion as at
April 2015.
Of that amount, the Ministry of Education owed the most at N1.2
trillion, followed by the finance ministry which has N467.7 billion.
The committee warned Mr. Buhari that it would be irrational to
rely on the purported huge balances the former government claimed it left
behind.
First, it said, the numbers lacked key information to establish
the authenticity of the contracts.
It made the following observation regarding the claims by
the former government regarding outstanding liabilities:
– The aging of these liabilities was not provided.
– A detailed list of contracts was not provided and therefore,
some balances maybe double counted (eg contracts funded through debt maybe
captured in both MoF and the contracting Ministry).
– Some balances may be disputed. Therefore, liabilities may
change once settlement/judgement is reached.
– No documentation was provided to confirm if the projects were
executed to the agreed specifications.
– Some contracts maybe cancelled or terminated”.
As a first step, the Joda-committee advised Mr. Buhari to
establish an Inter-Ministerial Task-Force to review all outstanding contracts
(and associated liabilities) across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies
within three months.
“The mandate of this Task-Force is to confirm the existence of
the liability and authenticate the accuracy of information provided in the
handover notes,” it said.
“The Government should only recognise the liabilities verified
and confirmed by this Task-Force.”
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