Kunle Aderinokun
5 September 2008
Accra — The Federal Government yesterday identified lack of transparency and openness in administering aid and assistance as factors militating against derivation of benefits from about N384 billion disbursed in about one decade, for development projects.
Pointing this out yesterday in a plenary at the closing session of the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana, Executive Vice Chairman and Minister, National Planning Commission (NPC), Senator Sanusi Daggash, said whenever there is an issue of corruption or mismanagement in the administration of aid and assistance in the country, accusing fingers must be pointed to donors and agencies, since they are the ones that are directly involved.
"From my experience, the perception of corruption of our country seems to be non-performance or lack of protectiveness of aids. For Nigeria in particular, we are not on budget support, so no money comes into the treasury, the money squarely comes by direct intervention by the donors themselves.
"So, if there is any case of mis-management, misappropriation or corruption, that lies squarely on the laps of the donors and their agents on the field. That should be addressed. Intervention has to be done and should be done effectively, transparently and terms of communication has to be enhanced," he said.
Daggash said "some of the donors are not cooperating, they do not give us the data and information, but we hope we would be able to go back with the added confidence that we can ask and demand for information, so that we can work with them. That will help us in our national planning, with regards to projects, programmes, what has to be done has to be done, as we try to meet the MDG by 2015."
Stating that since 2005, some progress have been achieved in terms of achieving the country's developmental objective using aid and assistance, Daggash, however, expressed the belief that, "a lot more has to be done."
Speaking earlier, World Bank President, Mr Robert Zoellick, lamented that more than 70,000 donations were made to developing countries in 2006 by different donors, in rather uncoordinated formats.
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