OUTSOURCING INTEGRITY

The Minister of Petroleum Resonances, Diezani Alison Madukwe has set up a 21-member Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force in response to widespread public demands for improved accountability and transparency around all facets of the oil and gas industry. The Committee, under the chairmanship of Malam Nuhu Ridabu, former Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) during the last election, have terms of reference derived largely from the statutory function of  many government agencies. These terms of reference generally give the Special Task Force the power to work with consultants to establish all amounts payable to the government; to collect unpaid but due payments; and generally to devise better systems for ensuring that all proceeds due to the federal government from the industry are properly assessed and paid. It is to submit monthly reports to the Minister, and report directly to her.

The work of this Special Task Force is the same work which is the core responsibility of government ministries and agencies such as the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC, Ministry of Finance and the Accountant-General of the Federal, Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and other agencies involved in enforcing laws and regulations which should eliminate corruption and waste in the economy. The Minister did not make it clear whether all these agencies will now cease to have any responsibility for ensuring that every kobo due to the government from the oil and gas sector is properly and promptly paid. It is also unclear how this committee will work better than all these statutory dodies, or whether they have powers over and above those enjoyed by government agencies and ministries.

The first major conclusion to be drawn from the establishment of this committee is that the Jonathan administration has no political will, competence or capacity to deal with the serious issues raised by the overwhelming rejection of the fuel subsidy removal, which were the need to radically improve the levels of accountability by key operators and the transparency of the whole process. Everyone even remotely familiar with the absence of transparency and corruption around the oil and gas sector knows that their root is to be found in the office of Ministers of Petroleum Resources which the nation has had, including the present Minister. Many informed non-government organization and prominent citizens have demanded for the removal of the current Minister of Petroleum Resources, because no real progress can be made in investigating abuses or weaknesses in the system, or discovering corruption and waste with her in place. President Jonathan ignored these calls, and instead allows the same Minister to appoint a Task Force to report, not to him, but to her. Needless to say this will not solve any problem of improved accountability or transparency.

Secondly, the absence of any major scope for the Task Force to achieve any tangible result will strike many informed observers. Implicitly, the establishment of the Task Force amounts to an admission that everyone connected with accountability, transparency and efficiency in the oil and gas sector, including the Minister, has failed in their elementary responsibilities. If agencies or public officers whose failure  has made the Task Force a necessity will not be sanctioned, how can government improve accountability and efficiency in the public sector?  How can the Task Force achieve any result? When it has to work with inefficient and corrupt agencies? Is the Task Force to work on its own without institutional support from discredited agencies and public officers? Will the consultants which the Task Force work with do the work, including creating their own independent systems and entire infrastructure of data and processes?

Thirdly, it is important to ask why, if President Jonathan believes the Task Force is necessary, he does not make it report to him. This way, even the Minister of Petroleum Resources and the entire battery of agencies under it can be placed under scrutiny of the Task Force and the President. The design of the committee is such a way that it reports only to the Minister suggests that the President has no interest in any matter above the Minister, or has so much confidence in the lady that he cannot see how she can be a problem. Every chief executive in the oil and gas sector is still in place, and is still available to the Minister to query or to account to for their competence and honest. If the idea of the Task Force is the Minister’s in the first place, why doesn’t the President demand that the Minister recommends chief executive officers and other officials for removal and other sanctions? Does the Minister bear no responsibility for the failures of the sector; and if the President thinks so, does the same thing apply to all staff and officials in the sector? If there are no major institutional changes in the oil and gas sector and related agencies, why is the Task Force being created?

Fourthly, the Task Force major questions regarding legality of operations of government agencies. Is it going to be empowered by law? Is it advisory? Is it going to operate above NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources, Federal Inland Revenue Service and many other agencies which are established by law; or simply make them redundant by doing their work? The Task Force will simply multiply bureaucracy at a time when Nigerians are demanding a major reduction in the cost of governance. It will add no value to the manner the institutional mechanisms operate, because it will obviously operate outside them, yet will depend heavily on them for its work.

Five, the membership of the Task Force will raise many eyebrows. Nigerians are yet to know whether all the people whose names were announced as members have actually accepted to serve. We do know that Malam Nuhu Ribadu has accepted to serve, and the views of many Nigerians are that he had made a serious mistake on accepting to serve in a committee which have very limited powers, and which will be entirely subject to the pleasures and whims of a single Minister, not even the President. Many of his admirers worry that he has placed his considerable reputation and integrity at risk.

The Task Force established by the Minister of Petroleum to work with consultants to improve accountability, transparency and efficiency in the oil and gas sector is a white elephant that will not solve the endemic problems which Nigerians seek solutions for. It will merely create a façade, using some names with personal integrity, that government is serious about the endemic corruption and lack of accountability in the sector. The Task Force is an admission that all organs and public officials, including the Minister in the oil and gas sector have major responsibilities in the absence of acceptable standards of conduct and personal and corporate responsibility. They have failed the nation, and so long as they are still in place, the Task Force cannot achieve any tangible result.