Why Buhari Finds It Difficult Dealing With Corrupt Aides

Buhari

Mr. Kingsley  Chinda  represents Obior/Akpor Federal Constituency of Rivers, a third timer and Chairman House Committee on Public Accounts. In this chat he spoke on President Muhammadu’s ant-graft war and other sundry issues


Do you still think the  anti-graft war is slowparticularly now that Buhari has ordered that some of his aides should be probed?

The President is even slow in taking any action on the complaints against the SGF and he has no option. He also has a credibility problem if he does otherwise than release the SGF for investigation and this is somebody who has intentionally thrown himself as Mr Right. And now that your kitchen cabinet, your SGF is involved in issues that borders on corruption, I think that he should not only be asked that he should be investigated, he ought to have suspended him immediately pending the outcome of the investigation.

And the evidence and the facts against him are so overwhelming that, talking about investigation at this stage, for the ordinary Nigerians where I also fall in, I think what the President is doing is just to fulfil all righteousness so that let it be that justice is not only done, but that it is seen to be done. Let us wait and see the outcome of the investigation.

Chinda

We have also seen such investigations lasting forever, where nothing would come out of it and that would be a window for the SGF to quietly go home and enjoy. But I think Nigerians are also watching, we are also watching.

How will you describe the rot in the system as it affects even the electoral process?

I have said that the present administration is more corrupt than previous. I said so because what is happening in the system today is that individuals will steal public funds and pretend as if nothing is happening. And if we look at the things that are in place, the recovery of funds that is in place, they are all shrouded in secrecy. How much has been recovered? What do we have in the TSA? They are all shrouded in secrecy. And for a government that is talking of anti corruption and transparency, how then can you be that secret?

If you also look at the budget that Mr President has just presented, I call it a recipe for corruption. The budget contradicts itself, the budget is not implementable and cannot be implemented. The base is faulty, the facts are not correct.   Let me put it on record, I have said so before and I will keep saying it; we cannot plan based on 2.2million barrels of crude oil per day, it is faulty, it is not achievable and even where you achieve 2.2million barrels, how much comes to the federal government? It is not the entire 2.2million that comes to the federal government.

If crude is $45 per barrel, what is the profit on one barrel of crude? And then what percentage of that profit comes to the federal government? So you would find out that the calculation is faulty and how can you be talking about change, you present a budget without MTEF. And  tomorrow  it would look like the National Assembly is the problem with the budget, when there is no MTEF. We could come out with the medium term expenditure framework and give bench mark for crude and it is not in tandem with the bench mark they used, what would happen? There would be another logjam.

Now, what is the way out?

The way out is for the federal government to be more transparent, to tell us the truth concerning what is happening within the system, this country belongs to us. The way out is for Mr. President to be fast in responding to issues, he should be proactive. If persons are pencilled down or alleged to be corrupt, he should be quick in reacting to them. In the last government that they keep referring to, (Jonathan administration) the Minister of Aviation was asked to step aside when allegations of corruption were levelled against her, the President asked her to step aside for investigation and she did. We have not seen that in this government, even with the very weighty allegations against ministers, against personal aides to Mr President, they are still in office functioning. So which way are we going to?

It is claimed that the government is considering a cabinet reshuffle soon, do you think things could get better even if there is a cabinet shakeup?

We have heard that he is considering that for a very long time now; does he have the political will to drop members of his cabinet? Won’t he be looking at those who funded his campaign? Is he ready to step on toes now? Mr President lacks the ‘liver’ to do that. I don’t think that within the past one year they have recovered the money and made profit out of it; so he will still give them some time.

You  mentioned earlier the government’s finances – TSA and recovered loots- are shrouded in secrecy, but we know figures have been published in the past?

They have consistently given us different figures and when they were taken up on that, they  then said it is not all that they have cash, that some are still under litigation.

Culled from Vanguard