By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, Friday, wrote an open letter to the International Monetary Fund, IMF, World Bank, United Nations, UN, and Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 with the subject ‘Nigeria:  What is Needed in Nigeria’s Health and Economic Response to COVID-19’.

The letter was written and signed by the Executive Director, CISLAC, and Transparency International Nigeria, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), to the Mission Chief/Senior Resident Representative, IMF, Mr. Amine Mati; Country Director for Nigeria, World Bank, Mr. Shubham Chaudhuri, and in attention to Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele; and Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chair of the Presidential Task Force for the Control of the Coronavirus, Boss Mustapha.

The letter reads in part: “Excellencies, The public health and economic emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic present Nigeria and the world with a challenge unparalleled to any other in the living memory of most.

“It is evident that Nigeria is poorly equipped to fight the COVID-19 pandemic if significant community transmission occurs. Nigeria’s health care system cannot cope with the population of over 200 million even at the best of times.

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“There are only 7 testing labs and only one ventilator for 400 000 Nigerians! The low capacity of the health care system is further underscored by only 50 hospital beds per 1000 persons.

“With the housing deficit of over 22 million units, half of the Nigerian population lives in slums.  Social distancing is in these conditions unfeasible. Nigeria’s defense against the pandemic is thin with little room form complacency.

“As Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, recently said, Nigeria is threatened by the twin shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanied sharp fall in international oil prices. Even before the crisis, more than half of Nigerians were living in abject poverty and without access to basic health services.

“This crisis has the potential to worsen the situation exponentially unless complete and unreserved transparency in the health and economic response to this crisis is ensured.

“In my capacity of the Executive Director of CISLAC/ Transparency International in Nigeria, I deeply appreciate the scale, speed and flexibility of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF)and the World Bank (WB) response to this crisis. The IMF Executive Board is currently considering a request from the Nigerian government to receive financial assistance under the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument facility.

“If approved, these funds will be essential in financing the COVID-19 response initiatives recently announced by the Government of Nigeria such as food distribution, cash transfers, loan repayment waivers and the expansion of the social register from 2.6 million households to 3.6 million households.

“With an increased influx of money, however, come increased risks of corruption. As tens of millions of Nigerians under the poverty threshold are locked down and unable to feed themselves and their wards, we cannot afford waste due to fraud and corruption.

“Three global civil society organizations – Transparency International, Human Rights Watch and Global Witness – have recently proposed key transparency and anti-corruption measures in the IMF’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

“We join this call and appeal to the IMF, the World Bank and other development partners and the private sector to highlight the importance of transparency and integrity in their engagement with the Government of Nigeria. We underscore that the crisis cannot weaken its prior commitments to anti-corruption.

“Furthermore, we would like to emphasize the critical roles of the United Nations Systems in Nigeria and the Government of Nigeria who recently launched the so-called COVID-19 Basket Fund to harmonize investments in a national pandemic response plan.

“With this letter, we respectfully ask that you complement these joint efforts with essential anti-corruption measures in decision-making as well as the subsequent disbursement of funds.”

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1. Commit to full transparency in emergency expenditures and assistance

We welcome that information regarding financial and technical assistance is regularly published on the IMF and the World Bank websites. We urge all development partners and the government to publish details of the provided assistance so that the intended results can be independently verified and evaluated.

In Nigeria, all economic and healthcare programs should publish the full list of financial, technical and in-kind assistance including the source and targeted beneficiaries.

2. Scale up integrity in emergency public procurement Public procurement is a corruption ‘hot-spot’ in Nigeria. To mitigate risks such as hidden contracts, overpricing, collusion and bribery in Nigeria’s COVID-19 response, it is essential that transparency, openness, and integrity are preserved and that anti-corruption safeguards in government contracting are reinforced.

Information on government purchases and service contracts financed through the recently established COVID-19 Basket Fund must be published in a timely manner, in an open data format and, wherever possible, on a single platform.

Further, companies that bid and/or are awarded with a public contract and published beneficial ownership information in order to help authorities, media and civil society identify potential conflicts of interest, reduce the opportunities for collusion between linked companies, create fair competition for companies and ensure full knowledge of who is ultimately benefitting from public funds.

Fair and open competition among bidders, including both state owned enterprises and private companies must be upheld; where non-competitive bidding takes place for emergency reasons, the use of this approach is strictly limited in both time and scope. The Nigerian anti-corruption agencies and other relevant institutions must be empowered to prevent corruption and monitor market developments in critical  sectors  in  order  to  eliminate  collusion between economic actors or practices that result in price speculation.

3. Ensure audits by internal audit bodies and third parties Competent anti-corruption and audit institutions must be given unreserved access to monitor all emergency funding provided by the Government, international lenders, private corporations and non-governmental organisations.

Disbursed emergency assistance must be audited by relevant government agencies such as the Office of the Auditor General.

National Assembly must establish competent committees to monitor the disbursement of funding and their effect without political and other side interests.

In addition, the Presidential Task Force should guarantee that as soon as practically feasible, an external comprehensive audit will take place. Priority should be given to critical  areas  such  as  health,  public  procurement,  infrastructure, and social  security expenditures and expansion of health insurance.

Competent and objective third parties, such as media and civil society, must be provided with opportunities to verify and evaluate the impact of the disbursed funds.

4. Set up safe reporting channels for whistleblowers

In addition, the government and all partners must pro-actively encourage whistleblowing where there is a suspicion of criminal misuse of emergency funds or incompetency in their management.

International practice shows that corrupt practices and incompetence is hard to disclose if whistle blowing from insiders or those directly involved is not encouraged and supported.”

The letter also pointed that, “While Nigeria does not have a whistle-blowing law and suffers from a culture of lack of transparency and repercussions against those who blow the whistle, in particular civil servants.”

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The group also called on government and development partners to lay solid support base for those who will be agents against corrupt practices as whistle blowers in order to boost their confidence to expose perpetrators.

“We call on the Government and international partners to actively encourage whistleblowers, guarantee their safety and ensure all reported cases are investigated in a transparent and open manner.

“Nigerian citizens must also be encouraged to use established complaint mechanisms by governmental or non-governmental agencies to ensure maximum accountability in the provision of emergency assistance.

“We reiterate that the health and economic responses must be accompanied by transparent and accountable oversight to prevent corruption and mismanagement of these resources.

“We acknowledge the vital role of the Government of Nigeria, private sector, international community and citizens at all have in ensuring that the emergency funding serves the intended purpose of preserving health and livelihoods of the people”, he said.

Meanwhile the CISLAC boss gave assurance of the organisation’s support for in combating corrupt practices even at a global level.

“CISLAC assures the Government, private sector, international community and all other partners of its unreserved support in combating the global crisis. Just as we are determined to work with all state and non-state actors in the spirit of social justice, solidarity and humanity to minimize the health pandemic and socio-economic crisis for the benefit of all Nigerians and beyond”, he said.

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