Cost of Governance: Redeeming the economy from pointless expenditure

Discourse over revamping Nigeria’s economy from the wobbling profile of depression has been a subject enmeshed in diverse reservations. The recommendations over rebuilding the crumbling fabrics of the economy have been coloured with assertions of varying postulations.  Several models which have been canvassed by theorists as plausible measures to redeeming the economy from the woes of precipitation have lamentably not attracted the goodwill of adoption. It is affirmative that the adoption and implementation of such models can only find expression of reality with the deployment of the necessary instruments of political architecture. This finds expression in the character of the definitions of the workings of the subject of political economy which gives thoughts to the connecting links of the interdependence of political structures and economic frameworks.

The incorporation of models to give structural redefinition to the economy is, by and large, a resonating bearing that draws relevance from the workings of the Government as the institutional arrowhead of policy making to give directions to the structural patterns of societal formations. One averment which has continued to reverberate among the recommendations towards redeeming the Nigerian economy is the crucial necessity for “Downsizing the Cost of Governance” in the Federation. However, the occupants of the political space have refused to give this much thought. While the rationality of the recommendations is apparently plausible, the idea had been largely unattractive to the handlers of political instruments within the Country’s power architecture. Just as the composition of those who appear to be benefiting from the present arrangement have largely been one of maintaining silence, some critical stakeholders have begun to take up advocacy on the need for reformation to give expression to the necessity to downsize the running cost of Governance across all levels of government in the Federation.

A most recent position of a political stakeholder giving expression to the averment of the plausibility of downsizing the cost of Governance as a strategic measure to addressing economic failure, are assertions contained in a paper presentation by two-time governorship candidate in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti at the 10th anniversary lecture of Adeleke University, Ede in Osun State on Tuesday. In his averment contained in the paper titled, “Massive Government, Miserable Populace: Cost of Governance as Economic Growth Decelerator,” one of the challenges Nigeria is facing presently is that governance gulps the bulk of revenue that ought to have been channeled towards more productive ventures. Comparatively, he noted that while Nigerian senators earn about $450,000 per annum, their counterparts in the United States, a much richer Country, earn $174,000.00 per annum. On the House of Representatives, Otti pointed out that a member of the lower chamber in Nigeria earns an estimated sum of $224,000.00 against his counterpart in the United States whose package is the same with that of the Senate at $174,000.00 per annum.

Excerpts from the paper read: “From information available to the public, our federal legislators are amongst the highest paid in the world. Specifically, a study shows that they are the second to the highest earning worldwide. The only country that beats us is Singapore, a city-state that has one of the highest levels of income per capita, in the world. The reason for the high pay in Singapore is said to be to encourage professionals to participate in legislative functions. Everyone familiar with the matter agrees that the Singaporean civil service is arguably the most professionally run in the world. Again, America the model of our own democratic experiment, does not occupy a pride of place in countries with jumbo pay for their legislators. Before now, the compensation package of our National Assembly members was not in the public domain. There was not much to really depend upon except some veiled references to jumbo packages being enjoyed by members.

“The first authoritative source of information on this matter came from Senator Shehu Sani, the outspoken Senator, who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th Senate. Senator Sani had revealed that Senators went home with a monthly salary of N750,000.00 in addition to allowances of N13.5m per month. This represents a total package of N14.25m per month. He had also said that they were entitled to constituency projects of N200m per year which was domiciled in different ministries. Also not captured by Senator Sani are a few other allowances, which include furniture, car and severance packages for non-returning senators. Translating the numbers into dollars for purposes of comparison, our senators earn about $450,000 per annum. This is over two and half times the $174,000.00 per annum that their counterparts earn in the United States of America. Meanwhile, there are 3 senators per state and one for Abuja, totalling 109. The 109 senators have a combined staff of 829 aides on payroll and a retinue of support staff who are also paid by the National Assembly.

“The House of Representatives, in its own case, has 360 members. Together, they are entitled to 1,880 legislative aides amongst other support and personal staff. The compensation package for House members is a minimum of N600,000.00 per month or N7.2m per annum. In addition, they receive N12m monthly for ‘running costs’, bringing the total to about N151.2m per annum. The dollar equivalent of this package would be about $398,000.00 per annum. Interestingly, the package for House of Representative members in the US is the same with that of the Senate at $174,000.00 per annum. The average House of Representative member in Nigeria earns a clear $224,000.00 more than his counterpart in the United States. The US has 435 house of representative members and 100 senators for a country of 50 states and population of more than 330million people. When one puts the GDP of the USA alongside that of Nigeria and what their respective legislators earn, one begins to appreciate the lopsided state of things.

“Nevertheless, the issue of the size of the economy and general wellbeing of the populace viz a viz the size of the legislature and welfare of legislators, is not within the scope of this discourse. The relative productivity of the National Assembly of both countries is also not within the contemplation of my presentation today. We are also not going to pay much attention to the fact that our National Assembly is expected to sit for 180 days in a year and be on holidays and recess for the remaining 185 days in the year.”

Giving comments on the executive part he argued: “While one may not claim to be an expert in this area, there is no doubt that the Presidency gulps a large chunk of our annual revenue. All sorts of agencies and positions hide under the Presidency. There is a retinue of aides, ranging from Special Advisers to Senior Special Assistants to Special Assistants to, both the President, Vice President, and other senior government officials. In the spirit of cutting down on cost of governance, can we not also ask that we cut the Presidency down by about 40%, using the same logic introduced by the Oronsaye report? This could be implemented across board and should include the Presidential fleet, more so, since traveling may not be a very frequent phenomenon any time soon. Closely following the Presidency is the Cabinet. Presently, we have 43 ministers each with its retinue of aides and special assistants. Even in stable times, this is not only unwieldy and inefficient, but very expensive. Do we really need that number or are we simply pandering to what the Americans call ‘pork barrel politics’? Is this not just a very shameless way of finding work and relevance ‘for the boys’? The constitution recommends that there should be a minister per state. Some of us believe that part of our constitution should be amended quickly. Is it not possible to cut this number by the same 40%, wind up with no more than 17 ministers and still run these ministries efficiently? When one compares our numbers with those of the US and other leading democracies across the world, one would notice that we didn’t copy well at all. The US has 15 Secretaries (Ministers) as members of Cabinet, and it has 50 States. The United Kingdom has just 21 ministers. Interestingly, in the UK, Cabinet Ministers are also members of Parliament, House of Lords and House of Commons. 5 more members of Parliament are ‘in attendance’ at cabinet meetings. India, with a population approaching 1.4 billion people, has only 19 ministers in her cabinet and presided over by the Prime Minister. Even though there are several other assistants or deputies, they are not members of Cabinet. Germany also has 15 cabinet ministers and just literally at our backyard, Ghana’s constitution allows for a minimum of 10 cabinet ministers and a maximum of 19. What all these numbers show us is that we can afford to run our federal executive arm of government efficiently with the recommended 17 or even 15 ministers. Bear in mind that some of the countries we highlighted here are unitary governments while in our case we still have these roles duplicated in the 36 states by commissioners.”

Coming down to states and local governments, he averred: “Every month, the Federal Allocation Committee meets in Abuja to share money to the component parts of government. According to the approved formula for sharing, 56% of funds goes to the Federal Government, while the remaining 44% is shared by the states. Of this amount, 20% should theoretically go to the local governments through the Joint Local Government Account (JAAC), a body that in all practical terms, is also controlled by the states. This is because the local governments are accountable to the state governments. In most cases, in order to control the funds in the JAAC account, states refuse to conduct local government elections, preferring the subterfuge of appointing ‘Transitional’ Council Chairmen and officers, who are completely accountable to the governors. For some state Governors, they simply continue to renew the appointment of the transitional councils ad infinitum to ensure that democratically elected officers do not emerge. Even when the pressure becomes too much, they would simply organise a selection exercise that would guarantee that only their loyalists emerge at the end of such processes. It was all these that led the National Assembly to pass a law recently, aimed at guaranteeing the autonomy of local governments. Nigeria’s political structure currently comprises 36 states, along with 774 local governments. The jury is still out as to whether these are very large numbers or not, when considered alongside the economic situation of our country. Could we have done with fewer states and local governments? We shall attempt to provide answers to these posers during this discourse. The thirty-six-state structure in the country implies that we have 36 governors and 36 Deputy Governors. For each of these states, there is a state House of Assembly charged with promulgating laws for the state. All the Houses of Assembly for the 36 states of the federation put together, have a total of 1,022 members. Now, one must bear in mind that each of the members of the State House is entitled to a number of aides and personal staff who get paid ‘somehow’ by the states. The remaining members of the executive in the states equally have their own retinue of advisers, special assistants and senior special assistants. These also come along with a retinue of other personal aides. Each of the 36 states has commissioners (which we have estimated at twenty per state, notwithstanding that there are states with more than that). These invariably also function along with their own army of staff and aides. The local governments on their own, have Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen and Councilors, who also have their own aides and personal staff.”

It is apparent that the prevailing encumbered system of state structures overwhelmed with ebullient culture of profligacy is counterproductive to development. The prospect of sustainable growth and development becomes a facade with the encumbrance of such overburdened profligate expenditures in the running of Governance. It is imperative for the custodians of the Nigerian political architectures to come to reason with the terms of realities in embracing the special course of redefining the patterns of public finance to conform to the principles of frugality which is profoundly rational to streamline realities with the prevailing state of the economy.

Working towards the reality of this necessity, is a strategic measure which expression can only find reflective possibilities in systemic remodelling of government working patterns. Any political approach towards this move will therefore find concrete expression in the mustering and channeling of the appropriate political will to remodel the character of structural patterns in the working systems of government institutions. It is only plausible, hence, that efforts in the national interest be channeled towards modifying the prevailing workings of state architectures through well defined reordering to give political expression to addressing the woes of the economy. The need to save the prevailing situations of the Country from wobbling socio-economic deformities is alarming. Coming to the terms of the underlining defects requiring reformation to address the unwholesome patterns clogging up to strangle the socio-economic formations of the Country is sine qua non to salvage the polity from collapse.