Nigeria is a country of conundrums. Some of my compatriots are very adept at undermining noble projects and exercises in a bid to gain undue advantage for self-enrichment. Although many people think of it in financial or monetary terms, the monster called corruption manifests in diverse ways. However, there are many other ways in which the social evil rears its ugly head than in terms of naira and kobo. Padding, or bogus additions of figures, is one of such corrupt practices that are common in Nigeria.
Nigeria last held its national census in 2006. Before then, there was nationwide enumeration in 1952/53, 1962/63, 1973 and 1991. These exercises have been enmeshed in controversies because a national head count is a political and economic instrument. It is political in a sense that it gives voting advantage to a more populous community. Also, it forms the basis for the creation of states and local government councils.
The national head count is equally one of the yardsticks for delimitation of electoral constituencies, particularly the State Houses of Assembly and Federal House of Representatives. Economy wise, it is the census figure that is used for national planning and resource allocation. Thus, during an enumeration exercise, many political and community leaders work hard to persuade the census officials to allocate higher figures than the number of the people that are physically counted to them. Little wonder, people are incentivised by their communities to travel to their places of birth to be counted during census instead of being enumerated at their places of residence. The question about whether Northern or Southern Nigeria has more population remained unresolved because of the allegation that some of the enumerators posted to some parts of the country over count, while others under count.
Lagos was one of the few states that kicked against the 9,113,605 population figure ‘allocated’ to it during the 2006 census. Later, the National Census Tribunal sitting in Abuja in June 2013 vindicated the state by nullifying the 2006 census figures in 14 of the 20 Local Government Areas.
The National Population Commission has expressed its desire to use a biometric based instrument for the next exercise. It says that the head count would be centralised and synchronised with a working technology. In this case, if anybody registered twice, the system would take one. NPC says that the biometrics will capture the face, iris, 10-finger digital signature and perhaps, the voice of the person being enumerated.
Nigeria had the last national voter registration exercise in January 2011. Since then, there have been several voter registration exercises. The VR was biometric based, with the Independent National Electoral Commission using Data Capturing Machines to take and store the photo and fingerprints of the registrants. Even at that, the VR database is still largely bloated. The INEC used the Automated Fingerprint Identification System software to weed out multiple registrants and there were millions of them. As at February 2015, the figure stood at 68,833,746. In spite of this, the Commission was not convinced about the integrity of the database, hence the introduction of machine readable, chip-embedded Permanent Voters Card and Smart Card Reader.
It would be recalled that INEC insisted since the 2015 General Elections that only those who possess the PVC will be allowed to vote.
To further validate its lack of trust in its VR Database, INEC introduced a cumbersome voting process called the Re-modified Open Secret Voting System whereby accreditation of voters will take place between 8am and 12:30pm in 2011 and 1.30pm in 2015, while voting is scheduled to commence after the end of accreditation. The whole essence of this incongruous novelty is to prevent multiple voting. It is also one of the reasons behind the restriction of movement on Election Day.
Politicians had compromised some Voter Registration officials to pad the Voters Register with multiple registrants or fictitious names in the belief that it will be business as usual and they will be able to indulge in multiple voting. Even when the PVC was introduced, some of them were stolen in some states. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the introduction of PVCs and SCRs has, to a large extent, helped to reduce electoral fraud in the country.
Padded payroll is not new in Nigeria. What is new is the use of technology to expose the fraud, which manifests under the phenomenon called ghost workers and pensioners. For several years now, Nigerian public servants have been subjected to untold hardship through the numerous staff audit and identification parades. The Muhammadu Buhari administration decided to use new technologies called Bank Verification Numbers and Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System to track the actual number of its workforce. Through these measures, the Federal Government, in the last few months, has been able to eliminate about 23,846 non-existing workers from its payroll and saved N2.29bn in its monthly salary bill.
The FG, in a statement released by the Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Festus Akanbi, on February 28, 2016, said that it planned to undertake periodic checks and utilise Computer Assisted Audit Techniques under its new Continuous Audit Programme.
The phenomenon of ghost workers or padded payroll is not limited to the Federal Government. Many states and local governments are faced with a similar challenge. As reported in Sunday PUNCH of February 28, 2016, the Benue State Government said it had uncovered 1, 061 ghost workers who were previously on the payroll of public schools in the past administration. This was revealed on Friday, February 26 in Makurdi, the state capital by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Titus Zam, while handing over the responsibility of the payment of staff of public schools to the State Universal Basic Education Board. According to him, the staff audit conducted by the state government ascertained 23,441 genuine staff as against 24,502 the administration met on ground which has saved funds hitherto expended on ghost workers.
Padded procurement estimates and over-invoicing are other ways by which many procurement managers defraud their companies, whether private or public. The Bureau of Public Procurement has saved the country trillions of naira by downwardly reviewing incredible cost estimates submitted to it for certification by government ministries, departments and agencies.
The recent controversy over the 2016 budget is also a pointer to how Nigerian politicians aided and abetted by their civil servant accomplice, defraud the country of billions of Naira every year. The budget which was heavily padded had been appropriatiately described as a national embarrassment.
Again, this is not a practice limited to the FG but a malpractice, which, like THE octopus spreads its tentacles across all tiers and strata of Nigerian society. My take is that while introduction of technology may be useful to reduce this sharp-practice, stringent measures such as adequate punishment for the perpetrators and tighter control measures, including effective supervision are needful to rid the country of this corrupt practice.
PUNCH
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