Nigeria wants to borrow $29.96 billion externally. That is actually a good thing if we have institutions that would give us that money under fair market terms. The problem is never more money – the challenge remains the low efficiency in the utilization of the factor of production. So, this is my humble request: the federal government should post all receipts and invoices (above N10 million or $30,000) that are associated with this loan online for Nigerians to monitor and track. If we do that, we can be certain that this money will work for the Nigerian people. Also, that would go with this roadmap of dealing with procurement corruption in Nigeria. Yes, it is time to implement that our anti-corruption tech-driven strategy for public procurement.
We will build a corruption-free nation where it would be extremely impossible to perpetuate corruption because technology will make things obviously transparent. All government systems must be structured to be corruption-resilient so that people that want to perpetuate corruption will fail. We will publish any government expense that is more than N10 million in a web diary which all citizens will have access to. This applies to all levels in the federal government, from ministries to agencies. For national security reasons, a segment will be available to the civil society and accredited press team. Our government will improve business systems and make doing business in our nation easier.
This Anti-Corruption Technology Will Eliminate Procurement Fraud In Nigeria
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Discussing Nigeria and borrowing is a thorny issue, because most times we borrow for wrong reasons, and at the end we pay for what we don’t even understand.
Nigeria doesn’t generate enough revenue that covers its recurrent expenditures and debt servicing commitments, and yet we are always looking out for where to borrow more, with the misguided and misleading argument on debt to GDP ratio, not debt to revenue generation capacity; and the scam continues.
And will the repayment be under fixed rate or whatever condition we see Naira? We are making governance look so simple by hedging performance on debt accumulation, creating more problems in the future.
If you must borrow, just borrow and invest in only things capable of generating income, anything outside it is not sustainable. But with the items as currently listed, we will finish the money, become $29B poorer, and still keep wondering what happened.
Before you know it, the headmasters will takeover the land, introduce biting austerity measures, and they will start rationing consumables, including how much you can withdraw from your account…
“If you must borrow, just borrow and invest in only things capable of generating income, anything outside it is not sustainable. But with the items as currently listed, we will finish the money, become $29B poorer, and still keep wondering what happened.” I hope the end result will be better.
Thank you prof for this insightful presentation.
The quicker the Nigerian government commits to researching, sponsoring, developing and adopting technology as a platform to drive efficiency, the quicker Nigeria will emancipate from the mire of corruption, waste and haphazard growth. Growth must be deliberate, track-able, verifiable by the stakeholders (the public) and progressive. I am convinced that the framework you have presented could really do something!
Same thing in land registries, where registration and approval of titles are faced with unnecessary bureaucracy, causing serious delays in movement of funds or knitting of deals for private sector participants. Using block-chain/big data analytics could help simplify processes, ensure transparency and a straight line of authorisation, whilst keeping a clean track of historicals.
I trust that the powers that be will take your propositions seriously and adopt them without hypocrisy.
Thank you once again for investing your brain-power for the betterment of Nigeria!
Prof, please see this link. I assume that the framework you have suggested here presents a lighter and smarter implementation relative to what I found here. But I’d like to be educated on what the differences could be sir.
https://www.unodc.org/nigeria/en/deployment-of-a-data-bank-for-the-bureau-of-public-procurement.html