Wake up, President Buhari. Get in the
game; you have left the door open for more Federal Government bailout.
The question is, why would the Federal Government get involved? And,
beyond that, why should it? Can the Federal Government really help a
state like Osun? Hell no!! The predicament of these states is due
primarily to two causes.
One is mismanagement, which has amounted to
billions of their total shortfall. The second is the money that was
borrowed through the years for unseen projects and other unnecessary
obligations. Disappearing jobs, empty factories have all played a role,
too.
There are so many reasons why bailing out
cash-strapped states that mismanaged public finances with over N7bn
should be prohibited henceforth. We are talking about public funds here
and Nigerian taxpayers need to watch their wallets. If not, there will
be a call for a federal bailout to finance the purchase of private jets
for state governors. The National Assembly should act now to ensure
taxpayers aren’t forced to pay for years of mismanagement by government
officials. Failure of some of these states to properly manage their
funds might be rooted in an unholy alliance between the governors and
their godfathers. The issue of ghost workers is another thing that
should be looked into. It is a fact that some of the commissioners
liaised with the permanent secretaries to milk the states by employing
ghost workers.
ADVERTISEMENT
Leaving
aside the argument of the merits or demerits of federal relief for
these financially troubled states, the way these governors squander
public funds makes it morally troublesome and that’s to put it lightly.
It would have been understandable if this
bailout was as a result of natural disasters like earthquakes or
outbreaks of terrible diseases such as Ebola. Seeking federal bailout to
pay workers’ salaries is preposterous, especially when the said states
have been receiving regular monthly federal allocations. Osun State
needs to lie in its own poorly made bed; the rest of the country cannot
be expected to pay for the myopic misdeeds of a lazy government.
Consider an uninsured driver who
negligently makes an illegal turn that causes an accident with another
car. Witnesses call the police, reporting who is at fault; the police
transmit this information to the traffic offence unit. When they arrive
at the scene and find that the car of the driver at fault is uninsured,
will they tow his car to the workshop and have it repaired at the
expense of the government? Let us also pause and consider whether this
bailout shows respect for ordinary Nigerian citizens. The state
governors having chosen to run their risks, they deserve their
misfortune, so society need not save them from it.
There are so many good reasons why the
Federal Government shouldn’t have offered a bailout to these states.
That the government treasury is empty is certainly one salient factor.
Another is the issue of moral hazard: if these states can turn to the
Federal Government whenever their finances go down, other states will
have much less reason to manage their money effectively and make tough
but crucial budgetary decisions.
Ads Under Post PC
Title : Wake up President Buhari-Etcetera writes
Description : Wake up, President Buhari. Get in the game; you have left the door open for more Federal Government bailout. The question is, why would...
