Flanked by members of the All Progressives Congress caucus in the House of Representatives who arrived the Lagos House on February 17, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State smiled as photographers clicked away.



The APC House of Reps caucus, led by the Majority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila, were at the government house to present a letter to the governor asking him to re-contest in 2019.



Mr. Gbajabiamila, who said the lawmakers’ unanimous decision to endorse Mr. Ambode for a second term was as a result of his “brilliant performance” in office in the last two and half years, noted that the lawmakers were indeed proud to associate with the governor.



“Because of the giant strides of our amiable Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode in the last two and a half years in governing the State; because of the things he has done across board, across all the Local Government Areas, across different sectors, we sat together and we decided without a dissenting voice to seek his audience and endorse him for re-election in 2019 as the Governor of Lagos State ,” he said.



In the last two years, beginning from May 2015 when he assumed office, Mr. Ambode has commissioned many projects across the state. In May 2017, the governor commissioned the Abule Egba overhead bridge amidst pomp and pageantry. In the same month, he commissioned other projects including the Ajah Fly Overs and a couple of roads in Lekki.



Similarly, the government commissioned the Aboru-Abesan Link Bridge; the Ojodu Berger Pedestrian Bridge, Lay By, Slip Road and Segregated Bus Park; the Omotayo Banwo/Kola Iyamolere Street in Ogudu, Kosofe local council; the Admiralty/Freedom Road in Lekki; the pedestrian bridge in Ojota; a walkway in Jakande, Lekki, among others.



But while residents continue to ply these roads and bridges, little or nothing has been made public about their cost.
In 2017, PREMIUM TIMES wrote a series of letters to the state government requesting details of these projects and others, but this newspaper never got any response from the government.



The state has been serially accused of not making details of its budget and other crucial finances known to the public, despite repeated requests.



When contacted in February, Kehinde Bamigbetan, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, said he needed time to “gather the figures” and present to PREMIUM TIMES as he had just assumed office as commissioner.



On Friday, three weeks after he was first contacted, Mr. Bamigbetan said there had been recent developments when the government gave out figures detailing the cost of its projects.



He gave instances of the ongoing 181 road projects across the state put at N5.5 billion and the new mobile cancer centre put at N365 million.



He, however, could not give figures for the projects highlighted by PREMIUM TIMES, adding that he would work on getting other details requested.



Massive Construction, hidden financial details
Between the last quarter of 2017 and now, the Lagos government embarked on massive construction across major parts of the state. From the Agege Pen Cinema axis to Ikeja airport road and Oshodi including other parts of the state, the city is witnessing numerous construction works.
But Auwal Rasfanjani, Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), said although the state has become “a huge construction site”, very little is known about the cost of the numerous projects.



“Everywhere in Lagos now, they are doing massive construction,” he said in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES. “If you look at the Ikeja Road, along the airport, they have removed everything there and the work is progressing. There are so many bogus projects that are going on, you know, rather than take it one after another, everywhere is now under construction.



“But it is important that they also follow due process otherwise lack of access to information on these capital projects would amount to suspicion of not following the due process.”



For Achike Chude of the Joint Action Front, there are people who perceive the state government as performing well in infrastructural provision but in reality, there is little transparency in the ways the projects are being executed.
“When you carry out some of these projects,” Mr. Chude said in a chat with this newspaper, “it must be done on the basis of transparency and accountability because government is a public trust and that’s why there’s Freedom of Information (Act) because if government is to be run as a secret organisation, we won’t have certain instruments of governance like the FOI… like the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the Bureau for Public Procurement.



“All of these things are supposed to give governance a very positive face so that transparency is maintained and accountability is ensured because those holding power today are holding power in trust on behalf of the people.”



He noted that the various federal laws promoting transparency in governance have not been domesticated by the state government, saying it “sends dangerous signals to other states who see the state as model”.



“You cannot just be the Centre of Excellence for nothing but on the basis of what people see and on the basis of the fact that on the level of transparency and accountability, you are ahead of other states. That’s what makes you excellent and that’s the level we expect the Lagos state government to operate at.




“There is so much secrecy shrouded in their expenses and their revenues and all of that. We must relegate that kind of culture to the past and start a new culture of transparency and accountability. At this level they have not been able to showcase that aspect of governance and it is a critical aspect because ultimately they will be judged on the basis of that.”



Opaque Procurement Information



Last November, PREMIUM TIMES wrote the Lagos State Procurement Agency demanding details of selected projects in the state. This newspaper also wrote the state government, highlighting among other capital projects, details of the amount spent on the Lagos@50 Festival by the state government in 2017.



But for several weeks between November 2017 and February 2018, our correspondent on several occasions sought to get a response from the agency but was given the run-around by staff of the agency.



Steve Ayorinde, the immediate past Commissioner for Information and one time editor and Managing Director of two national newspapers, didn’t respond to several requests demanding explanation on the seeming opacity surrounding the information.



On the website of the procurement agency , very little is available to show details of contracts executed by the government.



The agency stopped publishing the details around 2015 after the controversies that trailed revelations that former governo r Babatunde Fashola’s website was upgraded for N78.3 million .



Speaking in a telephone interview, Friday evening, Mr. Bamigbetan said there are other ways to access the details of the projects, citing the budget document and the procurement monitor.



But PREMIUM TIMES reminded him that details of the state budget has never been made public while the procurement agency has refused to publish details of the government’s projects. He said “the issues will be addressed”.



“We will try and improve on whatever we have met on ground in terms of giving statistics to government’s programmes because our own position basically is that we will need to at least come out with figures so that people know exactly what is the cost of our projects,” he said.
“I think that’s basically the position of the government and we will try and work on it.”



But Mr. Rasfanjani on his part said it was not enough for the government to make promises, adding that the government must take decisive actions toward becoming open and transparent so that it will not be seen as corrupt.
“We should encourage them (Lagos State Government) to be publishing (details of) these projects,” he said.



“This is the reason why people will not have suspicion; if everything is transparent and you can seek for information and get the information. You’d be able to know the contractor, you’d be able to know the timeline, you’d be able to know the amount involved.




“So far, there is none of these massive projects going on that people are aware and if you claim to be doing these for the people, people must know. That’s the difference between democracy and military dictatorship: the right to know is very, very crucial otherwise you’d have undermined the good work you are doing if you refuse to be open and transparent, especially when the media write you seeking for information. You must make the information available otherwise, you’d create doubt whether there is no element of corruption in the process.”




https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/261476-special-report-lagos-massive-construction-hidden-financial-details.html

All I see is massive fraud not construction as the op claims..

What's happening in Lagos is a closed circuit massive fraud..
If you don't belong to that cartel, you won't get anything and you pay to sustain the cartel block chain!!

Zero transparency , more of communist / capitalist operation of government.

In a nutshell :

Lagos is taxing or taking from the poor who are the bedrock of her economy to satisfy the rich while the poor gets nothing in return except more taxation and more chastisement ...

ok

Which yeye construction. For every one construction, millions have been stolen by Alpha beta owners

When Lagos state government says FOI bill is not applicable to it?

This is a good development it has never happened before, it has always been hailing, no questions asked,no accountability, that means things are about to happen ,the scales are falling from peoples eyes,the hypnotism is wearing off,this going to be beneficial to the long suffering lsgosians. if the pressure can be sustained. let the questions keep coming, democracy is accountability.

This kind of news shows how important it is for a government to depend on taxation in order to force citizens to hold it accountable. If Lagos were just another "federal allocation" state, how many residents would really care how the money was being spent, just as long as their "kinsmen" were getting the opportunity to "chop"?

I expect that Ambode's latest tax increases will rouse Lagosians enough for them to drag him and the LASG to court, to get them to comply with the FOI requests he and his predecessors have been willfully ignoring for so long. The end result of a successful legal battle will be markedly improved governance in Lagos, with contract costs falling dramatically once they begin to be scrutinized properly by wary taxpayers. State politicians and wannabe governors will no longer see elections as being about getting the opportunity to hand "juicy" padded contracts to their cronies and frontmen, leaving the way clear for candidates who actually care first and foremost about governing well. All of this will see Lagos pull even faster ahead of the rest of the country, especially those parts whose natives reflexively protect their crooks with slogans like "leave our son alone!" and "witch hunt!" ...

omohayek:
This kind of news shows how important it is for a government to depend on taxation in order to force citizens to hold it accountable. If Lagos were just another "federal allocation" state, how many residents would really care how the money was being spent, just as long as their "kinsmen" were getting the opportunity to "chop"?

I agree with you, but I don't think most Nigerians will generally agree with you that government ought to depend on taxation. As far as they are concerned, Lagos IGR is already more than enough to turn the state into a Dubai replica. To many, Lagosians are already 'overtaxed'; even though according to the government, only 700,000 of the state's residents actually pay taxes (out of 8-million taxable adults). Little wonder why most states have abysmally low IGR basically coz the state governors are just too scared to tax their people, so they're left with the option of taking out huge loans to execute a few projects here-and-there so their people won't say they're not 'working'. But at the end of the day, the allocation they receive from the centre can barely pay the interests on the loans, let alone pay the salaries of an over-bloated civil service that they're too afraid to trim down due to political backlash.

Like you rightly said, only those that pay their taxes have a right to hold the government accountable. But first, people need to appreciate the fact that government depends on taxes to adequately perform its functions. That part is where I think our folks still need a lot of reorientation coz most don't think so -- they assume that Oil money [a.k.a federal allocation] or loans should be more than enough.

ODVanguard:


I agree with you, but I don't think most Nigerians will agree with you that government ought to depend on taxation. As far as they are concerned, Lagos IGR is already more than enough to turn the state into a Dubai replica. To many, Lagosians are already 'overtaxed', even though according to the government, only 700,000 of the state's residents actually pay taxes (out of 8-million taxable adults). Little wonder why most states have abysmally low IGR basically coz the state governors are just too scared to tax their people, so they're left with the option of taking out huge loans to execute a few projects here-and-there so their people won't say they're not 'working'. But at the end of the day, the allocation they receive from the centre can barely pay the interests on the loan, let alone pay the salaries of an over-bloated civil service that they're too afraid to trim down due to political backlash.

Like you rightly said, only those that pay their taxes have a right to hold the government accountable. But first people need to appreciate the fact that government depends on tax to adequately perform its functions. That part is where I think our folks still need a lot of reorientation coz most don't think so -- they assume that Oil money [a.k.a federal allocation] or loans should be more than enough.

You are 110% correct: decades of oil money have bred an entitlement mentality in Nigerians, causing them to see "government" only as some kind of Father Christmas showering "free" goodies from the center. I wonder how the many Nigerians who think they're "overtaxed" would react if they were to move to a typical European country, where paying 50% of your earnings as income-tax and "national insurance" is something even middle-class people have to deal with - and then there's also council tax, vehicle tax and 20% VAT deal with on top of all that ...

While I'm sure that there's plenty of fat waiting to be cut from LASG spending once transparency is forced on them, in the end the tax net is still going to have to extend much further out to touch the majority of Lagosians, if the state government is ever to be in a position to properly provide the sorts of services people are expecting: a situation in which just 700,000 people are paying for services to more than 20 million people is simply untenable. I'm sure it will help the medicine to go down if people can easily see exactly where their money is going, but even so I don't expect the majority who pay nothing to easily agree to doing their part, even though the superior services and infrastructure of the state is the reason so many of them came to Lagos in the first place: "awoof" mentality dies hard once it has taken hold.

nairavsdollars:
Which yeye construction. For every one construction, millions have been stolen by Alpha beta owners

All the constructions contracts goes to Tinubu and his Lebanese business partner Chaugoury,mostly awarded to their firm Hi-Tech construction. They are also currently handling all the projects and own all the lands in Eko Atlantic. By the time Eko Atlantic is completed Tinubu and Chaugoury might possibly be as rich as Dangote.

surgical:
This is a good development it has never happened before, it has always been hailing, no questions asked,no accountability, that means things are about to happen ,the scales are falling from peoples eyes,the hypnotism is wearing off,this going to be beneficial to the long suffering lsgosians. if the pressure can be sustained. let the questions keep coming, democracy is accountability.

Lagosians are certified docile zombies, under a strong trance procured in a shrine from Ijebu-Ode.

omohayek:

You are 110% correct: decades of oil money have bred an entitlement mentality in Nigerians, causing them to see "government" only as some kind of Father Christmas showering "free" goodies from the center. I wonder how the many Nigerians who think they're "overtaxed" would react if they were to move to a typical European country, where paying 50% of your earnings as income-tax and "national insurance" is something even middle-class people have to deal with - and then there's also council tax, vehicle tax and 20% VAT deal with on top of all that ...

While I'm sure that there's plenty of fat waiting to be cut from LASG spending once transparency is forced on them, in the end the tax net is still going to have to extend much further out to touch the majority of Lagosians, if the state government is ever to be in a position to properly provide the sorts of services people are expecting: a situation in which just 700,000 people are paying for services to more than 20 million people is simply untenable. I'm sure it will help the medicine to go down if people can easily see exactly where their money is going, but even so I don't expect the majority who pay nothing to easily agree to doing their part, even though the superior services and infrastructure of the state is the reason so many of them came to Lagos in the first place: "awoof" mentality dies hard once it has taken hold.

Spot on. Some of them that I'm sure probably don't even pay much (if any) taxes are already advising disgruntled 'overtaxed' Lagosians to relocate to Ogun and Oyo in order to escape 'excessive' Lagos taxes. lol. The thing is, Ogun state is also already feeling the heat coz just last night I was watching Amosun on tv, lamenting about having run out of funds needed to complete the many road projects begging for attention all across Ogun state. The guy was literally begging the residents of the state to please pay their taxes. Now, this is the same Ogun that many believe has 'arrived' due to the relatively impressive IGR numbers it's been posting in the last few years. Obviously the state's IGR currently falls far short of meeting its financial obligations; with an insane N9-billion naira monthly wage bill (which is N3-billion more than Lagos'), a $7-billion monthly IGR, and a FG that has refused to reimburse the state for the over N200-billion it has acknowledged owing it in refunds for fixing the federal roads that traverse the state, now please tell me how the state will not resort to heavy borrowing to meet its financial obligation. Something just has to give. They want to leave Lagos for Ogun so that they can escape/avoid paying taxes, yet they expect Ogun to progress and develop?? Like seriously?

As for Oyo, I recall Ajimobi once stating that he's scared to adopt the Lagos model of taxation coz of the backlash he might face from his folks, though he admitted that it's the surest way of sourcing much needed funds for infrastructural development.

Honestly, I don't think our folks are ready to develop just yet. Lagos needs to generate no less than $10-billion annually if it's really serious about developing, which is still far lower than the annual budget of far less-populated Western countries. This is just about one-third of what Nigeria as a whole generates from Oil revenues in a good year. We are not serious in this country.

ODVanguard:


Spot on. Some of them that I'm sure probably don't even pay much (if any) taxes are already advising disgruntled 'overtaxed' Lagosians to relocate to Ogun and Oyo in order to escape 'excessive' Lagos taxes. lol. The thing is, Ogun state is also already feeling the heat coz just last night I was watching Amosun on tv, lamenting about having run out of funds needed to complete the many road projects begging for attention all across Ogun state. The guy was literally begging the residents of the state to please pay their taxes. Now, this is the same Ogun that many believe has 'arrived' due to the relatively impressive IGR numbers it's been posting in the last few years. Obviously the state's IGR currently falls far short of meeting its financial obligations; with an insane N9-billion naira monthly wage bill (which is N3-billion more than Lagos'), a $7-billion monthly IGR, and a FG that has refused to reimburse the state for the over N200-billion it has acknowledged owing it in refunds for fixing the federal roads that traverse the state, now please tell me how the state will not resort to heavy borrowing to meet its financial obligation. Something just has to give. They want to leave Lagos for Ogun so that they can escape/avoid paying taxes, yet they expect Ogun to progress and develop?? Like seriously?

Ogun state's wage bill is utterly ridiculous, but I guess one can't expect any better when government is seen just as a source of patronage and "free" stuff. If Amosun or a successor were to dare try to trim the number of public employees, the same people who resist paying taxes would be up in arms screaming about
"their sons/daughters" being "marginalized"; if, on the other hand, he tried Aregbesola's technique of nominally keeping them all on while paying only half their salaries or less, they would call him a "do nothing governor", even if he was using the money saved to build them roads, schools, etc. The final alternative, which Amosun is currently attempting, is to abandon most of his infrastructural projects and content himself with merely paying salaries, but as we can see from the endless complaining, the same tax-resistant population is now complaining about Amosun "marginalizing" everywhere in Ogun state outside Abeokuta and Sagamu. There is just no winning with these people!

As for Oyo, I recall Ajimobi once stating that he's scared to adopt the Lagos model of taxation coz of the backlash he might face from his folks, though he admitted that it's the surest way of sourcing much needed funds for infrastructural development.

Honestly, I don't think our folks are ready to develop just yet. Lagos needs to generate no less than $10-billion annually if it's really serious about developing, which is still far lower than the annual budget of far less-populated Western countries. This is just about one-third of what Nigeria as a whole generates from Oil revenues in a good year. We are not serious in this country.

I think people will gradually start to come around once they see Lagos pull even further ahead, especially if a successor to Amosun proves willing to seriously tackle the state's wage bill, so that all that extra IGR can be felt in meaningful development rather being used to pay salaries to mostly useless "workers". As cruel as it sounds, what would really help matters is if the FG were to stop bailing out the states every few months, and instead allowed them to go bankrupt if need be; only then would governors have to make the hard decisions about raising taxes and slashing the public workforce so that taxpayers money is deployed with maximum effectiveness. The thing is that it's just too tempting for the FG to try to buy votes before elections by spreading bailout funds around, making the "government as awoof" problem even worse by suggesting there are never any consequences to constantly spending more than you earn.

omohayek:

Ogun state's wage bill is utterly ridiculous, but I guess one can't expect any better when government is seen just as a source of patronage and "free" stuff. If Amosun or a successor were to dare try to trim the number of public employees, the same people who resist paying taxes would be up in arms screaming about
"their sons/daughters" being "marginalized"; if, on the other hand, he tried Aregbesola's technique of nominally keeping them all on while paying only half their salaries or less, they would call him a "do nothing governor", even if he was using the money saved to build them roads, schools, etc. The final alternative, which Amosun is currently attempting, is to abandon most of his infrastructural projects and content himself with merely paying salaries, but as we can see from the endless complaining, the same tax-resistant population is now complaining about Amosun "marginalizing" everywhere in Ogun state outside Abeokuta and Sagamu. There is just no winning with these people!


I think people will gradually start to come around once they see Lagos pull even further ahead, especially if a successor to Amosun proves willing to seriously tackle the state's wage bill, so that all that extra IGR can be felt in meaningful development rather being used to pay salaries to mostly useless "workers". As cruel as it sounds, what would really help matters is if the FG were to stop bailing out the states every few months, and instead allowed them to go bankrupt if need be; only then would governors have to make the hard decisions about raising taxes and slashing the public workforce so that taxpayers money is deployed with maximum effectiveness. The thing is that it's just too tempting for the FG to try to buy votes before elections by spreading bailout funds around, making the "government as awoof" problem even worse by suggesting there are never any consequences to constantly spending more than you earn.

I'm with you on the Ogun wage bill. It is RIDICULOUS and indeed a time-bomb that unfortunately will be inherited by his successor(s). I think he had a chance to do something about it but allowed himself to cowed and blackmailed by the Labour Unions from doing the needful. But he has only postponed the inevitable coz that wage bill will have to come down if the state must move forward. Aregbesola had to sacrifice his image to do just that (he's perhaps the most vilified governor by Labour in Nigeria's history as a result, they even christened him 'Aregbese' ), but today his state's monthly wage bill remains perhaps the lowest in the entire federation -- N1.7-billion monthly. It makes no sense to be spending more than 80% of a state's resources/income on the salaries of civil servants that constitute less than 10% of the state's population. Utterly ridiculous. Common sense dictates that when your revenues dip (in this case oil money federal allocation), you restructure and explore other sources of revenue (IGR) and taxes. But if folks refuse to pay taxes while the IGR also isn't forthcoming, you don't borrow to keep paying salaries. Rather you lay off some people till your finances improve.

omohayek:

[s]Ogun state's wage bill is utterly ridiculous, but I guess one can't expect any better when government is seen just as a source of patronage and "free" stuff. If Amosun or a successor were to dare try to trim the number of public employees, the same people who resist paying taxes would be up in arms screaming about
"their sons/daughters" being "marginalized"; if, on the other hand, he tried Aregbesola's technique of nominally keeping them all on while paying only half their salaries or less, they would call him a "do nothing governor", even if he was using the money saved to build them roads, schools, etc. The final alternative, which Amosun is currently attempting, is to abandon most of his infrastructural projects and content himself with merely paying salaries, but as we can see from the endless complaining, the same tax-resistant population is now complaining about Amosun "marginalizing" everywhere in Ogun state outside Abeokuta and Sagamu. There is just no winning with these people!


I think people will gradually start to come around once they see Lagos pull even further ahead, especially if a successor to Amosun proves willing to seriously tackle the state's wage bill, so that all that extra IGR can be felt in meaningful development rather being used to pay salaries to mostly useless "workers". As cruel as it sounds, what would really help matters is if the FG were to stop bailing out the states every few months, and instead allowed them to go bankrupt if need be; only then would governors have to make the hard decisions about raising taxes and slashing the public workforce so that taxpayers money is deployed with maximum effectiveness. The thing is that it's just too tempting for the FG to try to buy votes before elections by spreading bailout funds around, making the "government as awoof" problem even worse by suggesting there are never any consequences to constantly spending more than you earn[/s].

Thrash

ODVanguard:


Spot on. Some of them that I'm sure probably don't even pay much (if any) taxes are already advising disgruntled 'overtaxed' Lagosians to relocate to Ogun and Oyo in order to escape 'excessive' Lagos taxes. lol. The thing is, Ogun state is also already feeling the heat coz just last night I was watching Amosun on tv, lamenting about having run out of funds needed to complete the many road projects begging for attention all across Ogun state. The guy was literally begging the residents of the state to please pay their taxes. Now, this is the same Ogun that many believe has 'arrived' due to the relatively impressive IGR numbers it's been posting in the last few years. Obviously the state's IGR currently falls far short of meeting its financial obligations; with an insane N9-billion naira monthly wage bill (which is N3-billion more than Lagos'), a $7-billion monthly IGR, and a FG that has refused to reimburse the state for the over N200-billion it has acknowledged owing it in refunds for fixing the federal roads that traverse the state, now please tell me how the state will not resort to heavy borrowing to meet its financial obligation. Something just has to give. They want to leave Lagos for Ogun so that they can escape/avoid paying taxes, yet they expect Ogun to progress and develop?? Like seriously?

As for Oyo, I recall Ajimobi once stating that he's scared to adopt the Lagos model of taxation coz of the backlash he might face from his folks, though he admitted that it's the surest way of sourcing much needed funds for infrastructural development.

Honestly, I don't think our folks are ready to develop just yet. Lagos needs to generate no less than $10-billion annually if it's really serious about developing, which is still far lower than the annual budget of far less-populated Western countries. This is just about one-third of what Nigeria as a whole generates from Oil revenues in a good year. We are not serious in this country.

How much does Lagos generate?

omohayek:

I expect that Ambode's latest tax increases will rouse Lagosians enough for them to drag him and the LASG to court, to get them to comply with the FOI requests he and his predecessors have been willfully ignoring for so long. [/i] ...

Not really,majority of lagosians have little education

@omohayek: I think you will find the following article by Joe Abah, the immediate former Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), very insightful.

Why Most States Cannot Pay Workers Salaries

Dr Joe Abah (a.k.a Eze Mmuo) - February 10, 2018
This morning, I want to talk about why I think some states don’t pay salaries. As always, my intention is to explain, not to justify. It is immoral and wrong not to pay ANYBODY that has done agreed work, both in public and private life: civil servants or domestic staff.

Thread…

Many states are public service states. In some, the main economic activities in the state revolves around the public service. The only good jobs available are public service jobs. Public servants are the elite. Everybody’s ambition is to join the public service. It’s prestigious.

The public servants are, if you like, the representatives of those in the rural areas. They are the educated elite who tell others what to do, even what to think.

The salary of each public servant supports 30 dependents. They know how to write petitions. You don’t mess with them.

Because each salary supports 30 people, having high salary costs as a percentage of the budget is not seen by the people as a big deal in the states. It is seen as a means of direct distribution.

So, a governor MUST recruit...and pay...and do infrastructure. Borrow, if necessary!

In some cases, personnel costs consume as much as 90% of state resources, even though the public service of that state is much less than 5% of the population.

If you sack people, you’ll lose elections. It’s that simple. You may be forgiven if you sack AND REPLACE, like el Rufai.

So, you have less than 10% of resources available to spend on infrastructure, healthcare, education, security, youth, etc.

As a governor, you know that if you don’t build roads, you’ll lose elections. If you don’t build gigantic structures in bricks and mortar, you lose elections

Now, assume that you defeated the incumbent governor to become governor. A month before he hands over, he will recruit an additional 10,000 people and dump them on you. They’ll report for work IMMEDIATELY!

When you are sworn in, to sack them is a problem. To pay them is war.

At a point, Ekiti State which has about the smallest allocation from the Federation Account had the largest civil service in the country: 60,000 people.

Even the Federal Civil Service is only 82,000 ...and some people say it is bloated. You take over as a governor, in shock!

Now, the public service in the states are TOTALLY politicised. EVERYBODY ACTIVELY belongs to the ruling party. The main preoccupation of the civil service is party politics. Any contestations are within the same party.

The only exception I’ve seen is Ekiti: about 50% APC; 50% PDP

Remember I said if you don’t do roads and build white elephant projects, you’ll lose.

The same civil servants will tell the whole world that you are not doing anything, so you are not sure of their loyalty.

There is no money. People that invested in your election are waiting…

So, to get anything done, you have no choice than to borrow.

If you ask your Ministry of Works or Education to give you a quote for re-roofing a school, they’ll quote N50 million. You know you can do it for N5 million. You ignore the Ministries and do it yourself directly.

Because each successive governor has ignored them, they haven’t done any work in years and years. Any capacity they came to the Service with is now COMPLETELY lost. Indeed, you’ll need some convincing that some even have degrees. Many have fake degrees but that’s for another day.

So now, as a governor, you are asking yourself why you should be spending 90% of State resources on this “useless, unproductive” 2%.

You find it totally maddening. You can’t raise taxes either. You can’t make enough money to be politically independent of your political sponsors.

Because capacity is so low and the cost of going through the public service is so high, you bring in your own staff and just award contracts from government house. You decide to throw a big party for your wife. The civil service prepares its dossier for EFCC when the time comes.

The choices before you are stark:

1. Do the right thing, sack some and risk your political future
2. Continue to pay them, do no projects and lose re-election
3. Borrow massively to do projects and leave the Federal allocation to them
4. Raise IGR, annoy market traders and lose.

Many governors will choose Option 3 and borrow massively.

The problem comes when you’ve borrowed so much that you can no longer service the debt. You can’t afford to default on your loans. FGN guarantees international ones and will deduct at source. Local debtors don’t give time.

All of a sudden, you realise you can’t pay salaries. You promise them you’ll pay. Don’t forget that 30 people depend on EACH salary. The heat is so much that you start looking to borrow more. If you get “bail out funds”, you either want to do projects or pay other debts.

Since the public service has captured 90%, if you don’t do projects, you don’t make any money for yourself in kickbacks. So you build schools nobody needs, a state university or even an airport with the bailout funds. You continue to owe, and that’s how the cookie crumbles. End!

SOURCES
https://twitter.com/DrJoeAbah/status/962235146933071872

nwoke37:


How much does Lagos generate?

According to the last released EconomicConfidential and NBS data:

ODVanguard:
@omohayek: I think you will find the following article by Joe Abah, the immediate former Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), very insightful.

Yes, that reads about right. The key thing here is the disconnect between taxation and government: it was the availability of federal allocations that bred this "civil service state" culture in the first place, and the FG's demonstrated willingness to bail out bankrupt states time and time again has only worsened the situation. Without allocations to rely on, and with a credible threat of bankruptcy proceedings which would involve harsh mandatory cutbacks, governors and their electorates would finally have to wake up and decide whether they want real development, or are content to have 90% of their taxes going to the noisiest 5% of the population. But who will ever have the guts to take away the federal feeding bottle, especially in a country where oil-based rent-seeking has come to seem like a natural way of life, and the vast majority of "states" have no business existing in the first place?