At the recent Nigerian Bar Association 2017 Annual General Conference in Lagos, CNN’s ZAIN ASHER takes on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on issues bordering on governance and its challenges, the anti-corruption war of the administration and above all, eff orts at sanitising the nation’s economy among others.
Achievements of this Administration I think the single greatest achievement of the administration so far is really setting the foundations for the economic recovery of the country. I think those foundations are important because fi rst, we were dealing with a mono-economy, mono-export, mono everything practically. But more importantly, we were also dealing with a system of public fi nance that was essentially opaque and if you like, a fair amount of corruption.
Not even so much corruption in some cases, that it was diffi cult in some cases to even discover how it was the economy survived the extent of that corruption. So, I think maybe the point is that we are rebuilding that economy and we have laid what I believe is a very solid foundation in the rebuilding of the economy, especially the public fi nance system beginning of course with ensuring that we block all of the loopholes. We have continuous audits now, we have an effi ciency unit that ensures there is effi ciency in government expenditure, we have the TSA – the Treasury Single Account that ensures that we are able to monitor government spending and revenue closely, and we have modifi ed the tax system so that it is more effi cient.
We also have the Executive Orders, one looking at we are looking at transparency in government business, we are looking at annual budgets of small agencies, and another is Voluntary Assets Declaration and one on local content encouraging local content. I think really where we are is a situation where we have cleared the mess, cleared the debris and we are laying solid foundation for modernizing the economy. Average Nigerians feeling the results Let me give you an example of what is going on. For example, look at agriculture.
I mean, it is very clear that agriculture has taken a quantum leap and we are producing far in excess of where we were even just a year ago. Referring to the Northern states, in most of the Northern states, agriculture has become a signifi cant economic contributor, Vice President Osinbajo (right), responding to questions Photos: State House See page 39 Interview At the recent Nigerian Bar Association 2017 Annual General Conference in Lagos, CNN’s ZAIN ASHER takes on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on issues bordering on governance and its challenges, the anti-corruption war of the administration and above all, eff orts at sanitising the nation’s economy among others. and what we are experiencing, for example, take rice production, we are experiencing, in this season, we are going to fi nd almost a tripling of actual harvest in rice and you’re going to see that replicating itself.
In a lot of communities where agriculture has taken root, take Kebbi state, take Zamfara state, take Jigawa and several of the other states, you will fi nd that prosperity is returning to those places. We recently opened the largest rice milling plant in Kebbi state a couple of weeks ago. Now that milling plant needs 50,000 farmers to satisfy it. Already Kebbi state is struggling to be able to produce that number of farmers and there are several other areas where we are getting those kind of signifi cant results, the rural areas, where you have the poorest communities. But what we are experiencing today is that those rural areas are coming up and they are doing so much better. As a matter of fact, this year, the vast majority of those who went on Hajj were farmers because they are earning signifi cantly more. So I think the common man would begin to see, because we are talking about real growth, we are talking about growth in jobs, and a lot of that is going to start with actual production dealing with agriculture fi rst. We are hoping that the agro-processing would catch up.
We’re hoping that resource manufacturing also would catch up, all of the resource manufacturing. We are hoping that even the innovation and technology-led manufacturing will also catch up. But all of these are, you know, we are at a point where I think we are taking off quite well and we will soon see signifi cant improvement in the lives of people. Getting Nigerian to export? Well, let me say for agriculture, you know, and it is interesting that a lot of export is taking place in agriculture already. You’ll fi nd that a lot of Nigerian grain moves to the North, out of the Niger, Mali, and those places. Th ere is a lot of export going on, especially grain, loads and loads of trucks are moving on to the markets in those neighbourhoods. We are also experiencing a lot of exports into West Africa.
What we need to do is more value added exports, which is really where a lot of the profi t is going to lie and we are working on that. And part of what we are doing for the NEPC, that is the Export Promotion Council, and the NIPC, and several other of our agencies, is standardizing those products. We’ve got quite a few investors, for instance, there are investors in vegetable and fruits, bananas, pineapples and all of that, who are already doing excellent packaging for export. But what you fi nd, one of the things that you will discover is that, a Mexican investor in bananas and pineapples and he is in 11 states already. But what he was saying to us is, look, the local market is so large, so huge, that I don’t need to export at this point. Just satisfy the local market, it’s huge.\
So I think we have a situation here where even our domestic market is large enough to create the kind of opportunities that other countries will salivate about. So, I think we are in a good place. We’re certainly behind the curve in terms of realising the potential in agriculture, the potential in agro-processing. But in the past year and a half, I think that more and more innovation and opportunities are arising, and more people are going into farming, and more and more investors are coming into farming.
So we think we are in a very good place. Mending the corruption reputation Absolutely, and I think you are right, especially the reputational issue of corruption. But there are quite a few things that we are trying to do. One of the critical things, and I think Mr. Nika Gilauri mentioned that, which is that, government ownership of business almost always encourages rent-seeking. So we need to get out of government ownership of most businesses, and that is one of the key things for us, that you need to do certainly much more private sector involvement. Th e more private sector involvement, the more effi cient the system is, the more transparent the system becomes. I think that is one of the critical issues that we are trying to deal with.
I was saying that we have signed a few executive orders; the fi rst is the Executive Order 001, which is really on transparency in government business. Now, transparency in government business, we insist that there are timelines for delivery of government business. We are at the moment training a lot of our public servants in delivering effi ciency in that respect and ensuring that timelines are better. Th ere is also what we call the one-government system, namely that if you need fi ve diff erent approvals from government and you get one of those approvals, it is up to the government to ensure that government agencies talk to each other rather than have you go from point to point to get those approvals. Th at is the one-government system which we are working on now.
Now that way, you’re able to reduce the interaction with agents, and agencies and all that, and you’re able to do almost a one self-centre for collecting all of the diff erent investment approvals that you need. Technology is also helping with respect to registration of companies. We now have an electronic platform in the Corporate Aff airs Commission for the registration of companies. And we think that introduces less discretion, so the public servant does not have any discretion with business online there is less
interaction with any human agent and all that. Th at is also speeding up the entire process of registration of companies. But we think that the most important thing is that the more you introduce technology, you reduce the opportunities for rentseeking, we privatise as much as possible, I think that will help effi ciency. But the other thing also is that we must punish off enders. Th ere must be consequences and this is really the point. Sometimes, you fi nd yourself in a situation where, we are saying, look, we are charging so many people to court.
Th e court system is relatively slow, so we need to build that institution, we need to build our court system, we need to build our trial process so that it is much faster. I mean, fi ghting corruption is a multi-sectoral thing, you need the law enforcement institutions, you need the justice system, you need the prosecution, that is the executive, but we have to work. It is not one trying to just push. So we’ve got quite a few cases of people who are in court already; we’ve got quite a few public offi cers who have been put on trial. Corruption convictions and the slow pace of it Convictions have been slow, very slow. Th e institutional process is extremely slow.
I was a prosecutor in Lagos and we have a situation where even the process of getting a case to court, investigative process, can be quite slow. Sometimes you fi nd that policemen are transferred, those who are IPOs, Investigating Police Offi cers are sometimes transferred. Sometimes because the system allows appeals on a wide variety of issues, there are then challenges of various kinds that are dilatory delaying and all of that. So you fi nd out that the system allows a lot of ineffi ciency and we really need to reform that system so that it will be effi cient enough to try cases promptly and so that people see the consequences of corruption or consequences of wrongdoing.
Speeding up the judicial process Well, fi rst, that whole process of reforming the system involves essentially three separate arms of government, which must come together, that is the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, the judiciary in particularly. Of course, you know also that the judiciary is independent. But what we try to do is to work with the judiciary. I’ve had a series of conversation with the Chief Justice of Nigeria. As a matter of fact, just in the past few days, we also had a couple of conversation around establishing special off ences courts, around trying to improve the performance of the judiciary and all of that.
I think those conversations are important because that is one way of ensuring that we are all on the same page about improving effi ciency. But it is also important that there is commitment on the part of our profession, the legal profession, to reform. Th ese are some of the issues that we are trying to contend with, but certainly and the government is committed to it, we are doing our part and we think that it is important to work with the other arms of government, the legislature and the judiciary, and we are doing that. Issue of better pay for workers It is a fantastic suggestion. But let me just say that we are in a bind of sorts, you know, because at the moment, we are spending 70 percent of revenues on remunerations essentially, by public sector remunerations and overheads, which leaves a paltry, less than 30 percent for our capital expenditure.
So already we are spending a huge amount of money. What we need is a much more effi cient civil service that is paid more. But in order to do such, we certainly need to increase revenue. Sometimes it is a chicken and egg situation, because in order to increase revenues, we need to increase you know. I think that what we are probably going to end up doing is what we have done with some of the parastatals; in other words, identifying certain government services that must be remunerated diff erently in order to be able to increase effi ciency. One of those are some of the revenue generating agencies, for instance, the FIRS, Federal Inland Revenue Service. Improving remuneration, especially bonuses, would do a lot of good. Th at we saw happen in Lagos, with the Lagos Inland Revenue Service, where because there were bonuses, there was improvement in revenue and reform, people were able to do better, even in our judicial system. Because we paid better, we remunerated better, people were able to improve. But some of it has to be targeted, because you can’t have an overall increase in expenditure today of government expenditure, especially on remuneration, because that’s already skewed somewhat in favour of recurrent expenditure, which is the problem. Getting Nigerians to pay their taxes What it is, is this.
We have what we call the Voluntary Assets Declaration Scheme and what that says is in 90 days you come up with a self-assessment that tells us where all of these are. How much are you earning, how much are you paying in taxes? Pay the diff erence. We’ll forgive the penalties; we’ll forgive the past so long as you come up with this within the 90-day period. Now, of course as you know, many countries, the UK is opening up a benefi cial ownership scheme so that we will know in another few months what you own abroad, especially what you own in the UK and countries like that. So, if you don’t do this within 90 days, then we will go ahead with criminal prosecution where necessary, because there are already criminal prosecution provisions in the tax laws.
So the whole idea is that you have a 90-day amnesty, you have a 90-day period of grace. After that period, we are going to just go ahead and enforce the law. Enforcing the new tax drive? It is very straightforward. If we discover after the 90-day period that you’re hiding away some money or you have not declared those assets that you ought to have declared in order for us to know what your revenue is and all of that, then it’s simple, it is very straightforward. Evasion of tax under our law is criminal. Th ere is civil liability and criminal liability. It is very straightforward. Th e only thing that can prevent possible prosecution is if we don’t discover it. Okay, if you have assets in the United Kingdom, for instance, under the Benefi cial Ownership Scheme in the UK now, we are going to know who owns what in the UK. So that is going to be made public; that will become public. Now, many wealthy Nigerians own assets in the UK and several other countries in the OECD are also opening up. So we are bound to know very soon what people own abroad in particular. What you own here is probably easier to discover. We will fi nd out in due course. I think the most important thing is that we’ve set the framework and we’ve given a sensible period of grace. And already quite a few Nigerians are coming up and discussing the terms of their payment of whatever.
