Jonathan shared N150bn two weeks to 2015 polls — Osinbajo

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has alleged that the government of
former President Goodluck Jonathan “essentially shared” N150
billion two weeks to the 2015 polls.

He said while the current administration with less revenue, has
increased capital funding by 400 percent in power, works and
housing, defence, transportation, agricultural sectors, the
Jonathan administration with surplus funds, spent N14 billion on
agriculture in 2014, N15 billion on transportation, and a total of
N153 billion on infrastructure in three years.

Osinbajo said while the government of President Muhammadu Buhari
has not completely dealt with corruption, it has demonstrated
enough political will to reverse the trend.

He spoke on Monday during the 7th presidential quarterly
business forum for private sector stakeholders which held at the
old banquet hall of the presidential villa, Abuja.

The forum provides a platform for private sector/business
leaders and groups to engage with top government officials such as
ministers, advisers and heads of agencies.

“In one single transaction, a few weeks to the 2015 elections,
sums of N100billion and $295million were just frittered away by a
few,” he said.

“Nobody should talk about the economy when you have this kind of
huge leakages and huge corruption. Corruption that completely makes
nonsense of even what you are allocating to capital projects.

“We saw from the presentation of the minister of finance that
N14 billion was spent on agriculture in 2014, transportation N15
billion, so the total spent on infrastructure in those three years
were N153 billion and in two weeks before the elections, N150
billion was essentially shared.

“So, if your total infrastructure spending is N150 billion and
you can share N153 billion, that is completely incredible. That
sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. And when
we are talking about the economy, we must simply understand that
that is the problem.”

The vice-president added that most Nigerians, for some reasons,
do not discuss the role of corruption in crippling the nation’s
economy.

He said though corruption is not easy to stamp out, if the
country sticks to the policy of ensuring that there is no impunity
as far as public finance is concerned and people are held to
account, the economy will “soar in no time”.

“I must ask again what is wrong with the Nigerian economy and
what do we need to do to correct the flaws. There are several
issues many of which have already been articulated but I want to
talk about what I think is the biggest problem which for some
reason we hardly talk about when discussing our national economy,”
he said.

“This is grand corruption in the public finance space. Sometimes
the way we talk about the Nigerian economy it does appear as if it
is the economy of say Norway or somewhere where all things are
equal. Even when we refer to what has taken place in our economy,
we almost sound as if this is in every sense a very normal business
environment, a very normal public finance environment but that is
not the case.

“I do not think that any consideration about our economy
development can be properly and honestly done without fully
analysing corruption, especially grand corruption in the public
finance space. You see that despite record high levels of oil
prices, very little was invested in infrastructure and a record
level of leakages were recorded in the past few years.

“This is the fundamental issue in our economy. Corruption
affects everything. It affects even judgement as to what sort of
infrastructure to put in place or whether infrastructure will ever
be complete. It is so fundamental that we can’t even think of our
economy without thinking of what to do about it.

“Sometimes when we talk about our economy, we talk about the
fact that we have relied on single commodity and that is one of the
reasons why we are where we are. Yes, that’s quite true, but the
fact is that proceeds from that single commodity was regularly
hijacked consistently by a few. That is really the problem. If we
had spent the proceeds from that single commodity the way we ought
to, we won’t be where we are today.”

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has alleged that the government of
former President Goodluck Jonathan “essentially shared” N150
billion two weeks to the 2015 polls.

He said while the current administration with less revenue, has
increased capital funding by 400 percent in power, works and
housing, defence, transportation, agricultural sectors, the
Jonathan administration with surplus funds, spent N14 billion on
agriculture in 2014, N15 billion on transportation, and a total of
N153 billion on infrastructure in three years.

Osinbajo said while the government of President Muhammadu Buhari
has not completely dealt with corruption, it has demonstrated
enough political will to reverse the trend.

He spoke on Monday during the 7th presidential quarterly
business forum for private sector stakeholders which held at the
old banquet hall of the presidential villa, Abuja.

The forum provides a platform for private sector/business
leaders and groups to engage with top government officials such as
ministers, advisers and heads of agencies.

“In one single transaction, a few weeks to the 2015 elections,
sums of N100billion and $295million were just frittered away by a
few,” he said.

“Nobody should talk about the economy when you have this kind of
huge leakages and huge corruption. Corruption that completely makes
nonsense of even what you are allocating to capital projects.

“We saw from the presentation of the minister of finance that
N14 billion was spent on agriculture in 2014, transportation N15
billion, so the total spent on infrastructure in those three years
were N153 billion and in two weeks before the elections, N150
billion was essentially shared.

“So, if your total infrastructure spending is N150 billion and
you can share N153 billion, that is completely incredible. That
sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. And when
we are talking about the economy, we must simply understand that
that is the problem.”

The vice-president added that most Nigerians, for some reasons,
do not discuss the role of corruption in crippling the nation’s
economy.

He said though corruption is not easy to stamp out, if the
country sticks to the policy of ensuring that there is no impunity
as far as public finance is concerned and people are held to
account, the economy will “soar in no time”.

“I must ask again what is wrong with the Nigerian economy and
what do we need to do to correct the flaws. There are several
issues many of which have already been articulated but I want to
talk about what I think is the biggest problem which for some
reason we hardly talk about when discussing our national economy,”
he said.

“This is grand corruption in the public finance space. Sometimes
the way we talk about the Nigerian economy it does appear as if it
is the economy of say Norway or somewhere where all things are
equal. Even when we refer to what has taken place in our economy,
we almost sound as if this is in every sense a very normal business
environment, a very normal public finance environment but that is
not the case.

“I do not think that any consideration about our economy
development can be properly and honestly done without fully
analysing corruption, especially grand corruption in the public
finance space. You see that despite record high levels of oil
prices, very little was invested in infrastructure and a record
level of leakages were recorded in the past few years.

“This is the fundamental issue in our economy. Corruption
affects everything. It affects even judgement as to what sort of
infrastructure to put in place or whether infrastructure will ever
be complete. It is so fundamental that we can’t even think of our
economy without thinking of what to do about it.

“Sometimes when we talk about our economy, we talk about the
fact that we have relied on single commodity and that is one of the
reasons why we are where we are. Yes, that’s quite true, but the
fact is that proceeds from that single commodity was regularly
hijacked consistently by a few. That is really the problem. If we
had spent the proceeds from that single commodity the way we ought
to, we won’t be where we are today.”