It’s a tough time in Nigeria’s civil service. The government money that sloshed through bureaucrats’ personal accounts until last year has dried up, leaving many facing a novel fate: They have to survive on their salaries.
Stories
abound of mid-level bureaucrats in the capital, Abuja, with luxury
houses and multiple European luxury cars, who can no longer pay for
gasoline. Others have had to withdraw their children from prestigious
foreign schools and colleges.
“There
are now civil servants who have to live just on their salaries. They
were living above their standard before,” said Mala Mohammad Yaro, an
auditor in the Maiduguri state government. “They are now complaining.”
Nigeria
has seen many billions of dollars leak out of government coffers in
past decades, with the state oil company one of the worst offenders.
Nigeria
ranks 136th among 167 nations on the “perceptions of corruption” index
compiled by the advocacy group Transparency International, with first
being least corrupt (Denmark) and 167th the worst (a tie between Somalia
and North Korea).
Corruption
in various forms — bribes, overcharging, skimming from government
accounts — is so embedded in Nigerian culture that when then-British
Prime Minister David Cameron was caught on video this year calling
Afghanistan and Nigeria “fantastically corrupt,” the Nigerian president
didn’t object. Well, I think he’s being honest about it,” President
Muhammadu Buhari told CNN. He added, “I don’t think you can fault him.”
Buhari
has unleashed an anti-corruption sweep that has touched people across
the country but left bureaucrats, in particular, in despair.
In
Kano, the country’s second-biggest city, a civil servant who got his
job through a family connection 15 years ago is tall, thin and, these
days, gloomy.
“It’s
like a tradition,” the civil servant, Ibrahim, said of corruption in
the bureaucracy. “Because the government had plenty of money, they
didn’t care much what happened.”
Ibrahim, who declined to be fully identified because of the corruption crackdown, says he was not a big-time crook, like the accounting and revenue officials.
“They
used to buy houses, marry beautiful wives,” he said. “They used to send
their children abroad [for education]. Some of them had many very
expensive cars.”
But
that’s getting harder now after Buhari implemented a reform last year
that is simple and elegant: Government departments and agencies used to
have more than 10,000 accounts in various commercial banks. Now there is
just one government account in the central bank, the Treasury Single
Account.
In
the stroke of a pen, myriad scams were wiped out. Banks could no longer
lend government money back to the government at exorbitant rates.
Bureaucrats couldn’t siphon off bank interest. Money could no longer be
discreetly detoured out of the breathtaking tangle of accounts.
Scandalously inflated government contracts could be easily traced.
Now the government actually knows where its money is and how it’s spending it.
“The
Treasury Single Account has affected us all,” bemoaned Ibrahim. “Civil
servants are crying, because everything they did before, they cannot do
any more.”
He
cannot afford to run his car. Even buying food is a problem. He’s
embarrassed when relatives who have always depended on his
largess expect support.
“In
our tradition, if you have money you will give it to your family,” he
said. “But now the money is not even enough for your own needs.”
The
biggest thieves, according to Ibrahim, were those who had access to
government accounts; other bureaucrats have long been known to
generously pad their salaries with bribes.
A World Bank survey
in 2014 found that 55% of firms in Nigeria expected to pay bribes or
give gifts to bureaucrats or politicians and others to “get things
done,” more than double the average in sub-Saharan Africa. Forty-five
percent said corruption was “a major constant.”
The effects of such corruption are far-reaching, the World Bank says. Corruption is a major stumbling block toward reaching the U.N.’s sustainable development goal of ending poverty by 2030, according to the bank.
Nigeria’s
anti-corruption drive has been made more urgent by the country’s worst
recession in three decades, as the oil-dependent economy reels with the
decline in oil prices. The economy shrank more than 3% in the second
quarter of 2016 alone. Nigeria spends $4.4 billion a year on civil
service salaries, 40% of all spending, a figure the government says is
unsustainable.
The
crisis comes as Nigeria’s oil revenues have been hit further by rebels
in the oil-producing southeast, who have blown up pipelines, forcing a
drop in production from 2.2 million barrels a day to 1.4 million.
The
Single Treasury Account has reduced corruption and helped the
government get control of revenue, but it had left commercial banks
severely stressed, according to Garba Ibrahim Sheka, an economics
professor at Bayelsa University in Kano.
“If
we compare the costs and benefits, most of us will say it’s better that
the government has come up with this policy because it has checked one
of the major issues in the country, which is corruption and theft of
public funds,” Sheka said. “Civil servants are complaining. People have
been reduced to their natural position.”
But when there’s less to steal, there’s less to spend.
“Blocking
someone from stealing public funds will reduce his frequency in the
market,” Sheka said. “If retailers can’t sell as much, they will buy
less from manufacturers.”
Shopkeepers
in Kano say their businesses have shrunk, partly because civil servants
— once a large part of their clientele — are no longer flush with
money.
“Business
has gone down by 40% in the past year,” says Vashir Musa, 33, a
shopkeeper selling Chinese-made shoes, Timberland knockoffs and bags.
“People have to manage on their salaries. They don’t have a surplus
above their salaries, and they need that for the basics like food and
school fees.”
The
scale of embezzlement in Nigeria is astonishing. Judges, senators,
former governors and deputy governors, political staffers and ex-bankers
have been swept up in recent months in an unprecedented anti-corruption
drive.
Seven
judges, including two Supreme Court judges, have been arrested on
corruption allegations. The sacked head of the military, Alex Badeh, is
being tried on charges of stealing $3.1 million from Nigerian air force
accounts to buy houses in Abuja.
A
cousin of former president Goodluck Jonathan has been charged with the
theft of $40 million that was supposed to pay for tactical communication
kits for Nigeria’s special forces.
A former customs boss, Abdullahi Dikko, also has been arrested and accused of pocketing $40 million.
A former national security advisor, Sambo Dasuki, tops that. He’s been in fraud scheme prosecutors say reached $13 billion.
Not
all civil servants are distressed about the anti-corruption measures.
Yaro, the government auditor, said corrupt, rich civil servants often
derided him as a loser.
“I’m prone to honesty in my life,” he said. “Because I embrace a moral way of life, people look down on me as a poor man.”
In
the past, some government departments would deny him access to cash
books and accounts. The single government account has “made my life
easier,” he said.
There
are different forms of corruption: non-existent “ghost workers” on the
government payroll, overcharging on government contracts, diverting
money from government accounts. And bribes.
Ibrahim used to double his salary in “gifts.”
“Before,
people used to give money if you did a very beautiful thing for them.
But now people have no money in their hands. People used to give me
shoes, clothes, even watches,” he said. “You would thank them and tell
them you would have a very long relationship with them.
“You’d quicken processes for them. We used to handle those jobs with extra care.”
Like many civil servants, Ibrahim doesn’t believe the anti-corruption campaign will stick. After all, none ever has before.
“It cannot be permanent,” he said.
Sheka, the economist, agreed.
“Even if the government blocks corruption on one side, another side will open. This issue of corruption is in our blood.”
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