Ecomony Meltdown: Who cares as President Jonathan, governors acquires long motorades, private jets

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President Goodluck Jonathan, and other officials of his administration, as well as governors and heads of the National Assembly are not letting off any of their conveniences as Nigeria battles dwindling revenues, retaining extra-large convoys and travel teams, and flying private jets and first class with public money while the same government says the nation must accept cutbacks to counter the oil crisis.
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While the president and the governors have retained their long motorcades, the senate president, David Mark, and House of Representatives speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, are doing just the same.

Official convoys of the president averages 40 cars, those of the governors exceed 20. Mr. Mark’s convoy as of this week remained at least 12.

Governors travelling around the country mainly for their political needs continue to use private jets, maintained and fuelled at huge cost to public purse.

Only a few governors use public airplanes when travelling. An example is the Cross River State governor, Liyel Imoke. Former Anambra governor, Peter Obi, also did.

Rolling back official conveniences, no matter how little, are usually some of the first steps for nations battling economic downturns. Reduction in official vehicles could help save fuel and maintenance cost.

Nigeria is one of the countries worst hit by the dwindling oil price which currently hovers around $78 per barrel.

With no reprieve, President Goodluck Jonathan last week asked the National Assembly to lower Nigeria’s oil price benchmark from $78 per barrel to $73, to cushion further shocks at the international market, and to grow the Excess Crude savings which the government has turned to in recent months, to help pay workers’ salaries.

Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said the government is planning higher taxes on high taste products such as champagne, and top range automobiles, to compel the rich to pay more to help the government deal with the situation.

She said the government will significantly minimize foreign travels, and purchase of new equipment in the 2015 budget.

The proposals remain to be seen.

On Tuesday, the Central Bank Nigeria, CBN, announced Nigeria’s toughest response yet, devaluing the nation’s currency against the dollar by 13 naira.

CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the oil shift appears permanent, and warned that the proposed $73 benchmark may be too optimistic. He called for cuts on government habits.

The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, civil society and economists, say the government is not showing sufficient seriousness in responding to the crisis.

For a start, they argued, the government must confront corruption headlong, reduce administrative costs, and harness internally generated revenues from government agencies.

“Raising taxes on luxury items is long overdue,” the general secretary of the NLC, Peter Ozo-Ezon, told PREMIUM TIMES. “There has always been the need to tax the very rich in the country. The exclusive items they consume must be targeted.

“Private jets acquired by some individuals should attract huge taxes,” he said.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, said instead of imposing unnecessary austerity measures on Nigerians, the government at all levels should prune the numbers of their political aides.

“The governors, ministers and federal and state legislators should also be made to reduce their aides to a sizeable number that our economy can bear and whatever is gotten from this exercise should be used in supporting and bolstering the economy,” the union’s chairman, Francis Johnson, said in a release last week.
Many Nigerian said corruption must be the first casualty if the government intends to be seen as serious in managing the economic hardship facing the nation, and they challenged Mr. Jonathan to start right at the top.

“The President (Goodluck Jonathan) has said time and gain that there is no corruption in the country,” said Auwal Rafsanjani, of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC. “This is very discouraging to discerning Nigerians, because these problems could easily be traced to the corruption and impunity in the country.

“Whenever the President and his wife travel, the huge crowd that accompany them as their entourage are completely irrelevant and wasteful. If the waste is not tackled from the level of the President, how would the problem be solved?”

Mr. Rafsanjani denounced the government for continuing to sponsor pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Yearly, government offices spend billions on foreign trips.

In 2014, State house administration (not the president or vice) earmarked N240 million for local and foreign travels.

The president earmarked N2.4 billion for travels while the vice president proposed a relatively smaller N68.7 million.

The Ministry of Finance headquarters proposed N465.8 million, as hundreds of other offices did, for travels.

On Transparency International Corruption Index, Nigeria ranked the 134th most corrupt among 175 nations for 2013. In 2012, the score was relatively better: 139 out of 174 countries.

President Jonathan, accused of tolerating corruption and allowing indicted officials be part of his government, famously said stealing is not corruption and vowed not to declare his asset publicly.

Mr. Jonathan is also notorious for travelling abroad for official engagement with oversized team, at one time, over 600 to New York, on public funds.

Such wastes, anti-corruption activists say, reflect on the budget annually with the government allotting money for purchases that were taken care of the previous year.

The commonest commodities that repeat in the budgets of almost all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs are computers, scanners, printers, ACs, buses and Hilux pick-ups, checks by PREMIUM TIMES have shown.

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