OPINION: Senate And 400 MDA’s

 

• Better late than never?

BY KANMI ADEMILUYI 

IT gets curiouser as the fictional Alice was want to ponder in wonderland. After a lackluster performance, the Nigerian aroused from slumber or perhaps a Rip Van Winkle trance has noticed that the myriad of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are not adding that much if any value to the economy and something should be done about it.

The Chairman of the Senate committee on Finance, Sen. Olamilekan Adeola, has suggested scrapping them. Nobody is giving him any sort of plaudit for this intent since even the gullible know that he doesn’t mean what he is saying.

As a body, the Senate is aware of the existence of the report of the Oronsaye Committee on the costs of the machinery of the government. The recommendations of the Oronsaye Committee are also not a closely guarded state secret. Why is Olamilekan and the senate now thinking about costs, duplication and wastages in stoppage this time? Obviously, they need a soundbite to amuse the electorate that they are fit for purpose.

The contradiction is that the same set of people who now want to abolish MDAs, have in the life of the present senate, passed scores of bills establishing more bureaucracies. It is utterly ludicrous that the irony is lost on them. We should remind them and ask for an explanation. Furthermore, they have not deemed it fit to do a costs and benefits appraisal of our maintenance of about 115 foreign missions in hard currency. What are the opportunity costs of the foreign missions?

The costs are befuddling because Nigeria outside of crude oil is not exporting anything worth talking about. This brings up the issue of what the missions actually contribute to the economy. Most of them have ran up foreign currency denominated debts because of their sloppy opaque internal controls systems. We are being generous here about associating the foreign missions with even a rudimentary definition of financial controls. So hideous is their notoriety that suppliers and landlords in capitals across the world keep them at bay. There are so many sordid tales to recall about people hiding under the cloak of diplomatic immunity.

In contradistinction, when Nigeria was still functioning and focused on the attainment of sustainable development in the nineteen sixties, the Agent General representing a regional government in London was a sub-ambassador and defacto Minister of Exports of a regional government. It was a hard multitasking role locating, finding and retaining export markets for the agriculture produce of the region. The job was back breaking and not for the faint of heart. The efficacy of the process can still be seen today; Nigeria House in London today was actually the office of the Agent General of the Western Region until 1966 and the irresponsible abrogation of the 1963 constitution.

All of the above obviously is of no interest to Olamilekan and co who are brought up in a different political economy which is based not on the revenue production framework of the 1960 and the 1963 constitutions otherwise referred to as “you eat what you kill”, but on rent collection, “allocation”, sharing and assorted parasitic activities. 

This is the framework in which the members of the current senate were induced into and nothing will change their mindset, no turkey votes for an early Christmas. 

The next government will have no such leeway. Whoever wins the next election will sail into a full-blown state of financial insolvency straight into stormy weather, having been handed over a poisoned chalice. Hard decisions will have to be made by a new government about the costs of the machinery of the government, the so-called fuel and other subsidies etc. Olamilekan and the present senate will not be let off about the glaring dereliction of duty and their cavalier attitude to their oversight function. To be fair, the senate are oblivious about the verdict of history.