Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, August 12, 2004.
Public Information Act as a weapon against corruption
We
live under a government of men and morning newspapers—Wendell Phillips
The
media all over the world have been called the watchdogs of society and in an
increasing global village, that role has also become internationalized. Thus,
CNN although an American firm, like the New York Times, the ECONOMIST
published Britain and the leading
newspapers in Nigeria and elsewhere have freely published news about Iraq,
Sudan. North Korea, Cuba, the United States as well any country they choose. The loss of Labour Party seats in
Britain first month during the council elections was news far beyond the shores
of the British Isles. Globalization of news and the concerns they bring have
expanded the role of the media as watchdogs significantly. Thus the issue of
transparency in procurement has taken its prop place among the lengthening list
of global concerns. The world, so to speak, is waiting for Nigeria to clean up
its act in order to join the first
rank of nations of the world.
Rarely
however has the question been asked: Why countries must have a watchdog? After
all most countries in the world are governed by elected officials including the
Executive and the Legislative branches whose actions are checked by the
judiciary. But, the three 'co-equal" branches of government were well
established the United States when President Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Were
it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers
or newspapers without a government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter".
Jefferson
had his reasons, some of which are still valid till today as this paper will
demonstrate presently. According to Jefferson, "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with
the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of
others? Or have we found angels?" At about the same period, the Noble
Writer, a journalist in the United Kingdom was making the following
observations: " All governments follow the Machiavellian princıples,
reject all moral restraints [if not checked ] and give the citizens a
demoralizing example of greed, deceit, robbery and homicide" and added:
" Every
government
is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed". That was at the
beginning of the twentieth
century. The widespread belief that governments could not be
trusted, a belief till this day
supported by the verdict of history and experience has placed the onus for
policing the government on the “fourth Estate of the Realm” as
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) has christened the media for ever. A watchdog is needed whenever and
wherever there is strong belief that intruders, and perhaps robbers abound as
they do in government everywhere not just in Nigeria.
Just
two weeks ago, a state governor in the United State resigned on the strength of
allegations that his campaign was funded by some interest groups which have
since been receiving undue favours.
The former Vice-President, Spiro Agnew under President Nixon, was forced
out of office for receiving kickbacks when he was governor before becoming
VP. That is in God’s own
country where nobody can claim poverty as his reason for dishonesty in public
life as people do to excuse Nigerian public officials known to embezzle funds.
Whereas,
the America media has been relentless in its efforts as a watchdog to society,
the Nigerian counterpart has to a great extent been compromised; perhaps out of
fear of violence but most likely because they either profit by not playing
their role as a watchdog or hope to eventually profit by the conspiracy of
silence. Most importantly though
the media has been handicapped by existing legislation which protects the
public figure and by the lack of laws empowering the media as other nations
have done. This is the major
problem that must be addressed.
THE WATCHDOG AND THE
PROCUREMENT PROCESS:
The
question now is: “How do
media practitioners become more effective watchdogs of the public procurement
process?” The short answer
is: “by watching those making the procurements and finding out if their
lifestyles match their official incomes.
This approach to the problem was adopted effectively by an investigative
reporter for the BOSTON GLOBE in Massachusetts, USA in the late 1960s to mid-1970s
to unmask officials of the County collecting bribes from contracts. He called it “follow the money
approach” to investigative journalism. It seeks to determine if a public official is worthy of
investigation by finding out how he dispenses money in his private life.
That
approach is time consuming and could take several months or even years but it
is effective because the official confronted with private purchases well in
excess of his legal earnings invariably cannot escape sanction.
The
other approach which has also worked for the media in other countries is to
prioritise, in terms of value the procurements made by public bodies. Prioritization is based on the Pareto
Principle according to which a minority of transactions (usually about 20%) account
for the bulk of the outlay (almost about 80% of all expenditures). Having identified the items or group of
items that constitute the bulk of the procurements in an organization, the next
step is to determine which are subject to open tender and which are not and
whether the laid down tender procedures are followed. Almost invariably, embezzlement starts when tender
procedures are side-tracked. But,
the most important aspect of this method of investigative journalism is to
discover who the real decision makers are with regard to the items. Quite often, the Minister, the
Commissioner, the Chief Executive of the parastatal is a glorified errand boy
with the authority to award major contracts lying somewhere else. In no state of Nigeria today can a commissioner
award a contract of more than N2 million on his own without approval from the
governor.
Even
when the correct procedures are followed, media practitioners still have an
enormous job to do in order to protect the public interest. Every procurement revolves around two
basic elements; prices, quantities and quality i.e. the price per unit, the
number of units to be supplied, and the quality where it is specified. Very often the public is cheated on all
counts as the examples below will illustrate.
PRICES
- PHARMACEUTICAL TENDERS AS A CASE STUDY
Every
state Ministry of Health purchases
drugs and dressings through the open tender; so do the Teaching Hospitals under
the Federal Government. Since
government is the largest single customer for most healthcare items on the
tenders list, it stands to reason to expect the price per unit to be far less
than what an individual would pay going to the drug store on his own. That hardly ever happens; in fact the
prices paid by government tender boards are frequently above the retail prices
available nationwide.
QUANTITIES—STATIONERY
AS CASe STUdY
While
cheating on prices occurs on one dimension, fraud on quantities are
multi-dimensional. These include short-supply on number of unit of the product
( i.e. 700 supplied instead of 1000 ); short supply on weight ( i e 1000 of 250
gm cough syrup supplied instead of 1000 of 450 gm ordered); short supply on
lengths ( i.e 1000 of 70 metres long bandage instead of 1000 of 100 metres long
ordered); instead of the 4 inche
thick carpet of asphalt ordered for the road, the contractor delivers
enough for two inches etc etc. Yet in each case the contractor is paid in fill.
