Nigeria: Jamboree of Spree Overheads (I)

22 December 2012
analysis

Media reports indicate that the past three weeks have been a jamboree of spree expenditures in ministries, departments and agencies of government. It has become an end of year rite in government establishments in Nigeria to empty public treasury before 12 midnight of December 31 every year; even if it would require doing it the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) way. The inconclusive subsidy probe exposed the fictious payments by PPPRA of N999 million 128 times within 24 hours to "unknown" oil companies; an act amazing enough to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records!

The past few weeks have been a "climate" of workshops, conferences and seminars in the name of capacity building (sorry please, "pocket-building") at various ministries and agencies. Choice hotels in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and other state capitals have been playing host to several of such funny, "window-dressing", and fund-looting workshops; with showy banners struggling for spaces at hotel entrances. Receipts for materials that were never purchased or for work never carried out have lately become henna decorating the hands of senior public officers.

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