ENVIRONMENT

Posted:  Tuesday May 13, 2008

Fertilizer: Is Abba Ruma architect of his own troubles?

By IBRAHIM  AUDUSON_{___________________________________________}

Under one year of his appointment as Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Dr Sayyadi Abba Ruma seems to have run into hot waters, courtesy of the powerful fertilizer lobby. Recent newspaper reports suggest that some members of the National Assembly have been targeted as potential arrowheads in a campaign to have the federal government overturn an emerging consensus within the Umaru Yar’Adua administration, namely that leaving the crucial issue of fertilizer procurement and distribution to a vast army of middlemen, as was the practice in the past, could truncate its policy on agriculture, on of its seven-points agenda. 

The history of fertilizer procurement in this country, particularly from the period when its importation became a fad for some as a short route to power and wealth, and a drain on the national economy, mirrors all that has gone wrong with the various policies of government to make agriculture attractive once again to the vast majority of Nigerians.

We are familiar with an era not so long ago in which Nigerians, worried with the onset of the raining season without fertilizer to improve yields, would be told of the commodity being on its way on the high seas, only to be told later that truckloads of it had disappeared into thin air on the way from the ports to designated delivery points.

It was more than a case of too many hands spoiling the broth, because as we have now learnt, more than sixty-eight contractors were involved in the contracts. This number does not include hundreds of middlemen who also got in to get a piece of the action, the action plainly being defrauding the nation at the expense of the farmers and government’s intention at evolving a sustainable food security strategy.

Our media are full with anecdotal evidence from farmers, which illustrate the yawning gap between government assurances to the farmers, and the reality of their experiences. Off course, they would say, fertilizer is available, and we see it; but not at the prices the government advertised.

The problem validates a general perception that every government policy to benefit the people constitutes for some groups, a veritable source for making easy money.

In a sense, therefore, rationalising fertilizer procurement, and limiting the number of contractors engaged in it to just three, should form the basis for a shift in policy that should have a greater impact on agricultural output, rather than fattening the bank accounts of contractors and their government insider collaborators. As we have seen in the example involving the ministers of health and other high-ranking officials in the Federal Ministry of Health, shady deals occur in high places too. Nor are they confined to the executive branch. Under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, for instance, not only was the Ministry of Education involved in financial scandals, the education committee of the Senate was also embroiled in them. In the latest case of the Ministry of Health, top officials of the Senate committee on health are also indicted in it.

It is safe to conclude that there is sufficient evidence, even if anecdotal, that malfeasances of that nature were business-as-usual occurrences in government. It didn’t happen if you were not exposed in public. You are not a thief until you are caught in the act.

Naturally, in this haven of unholy conspiracies, anyone trying to stop them would be considered an interloper worthy of being targeted for smear and dealt with. In an atmosphere of transparency, such as the one that President Yar’Adua has vowed in his various pre-election campaign speeches, and at various forums since then, including at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, and in policy statements here at home, where corruption cannot be considered a normal part of government business, it is to be expected that those who feel that sources of cheap money are being choked off will take countermeasures to head of the threat.

It is in this light that we should frame the recent statements by some members of the National Assembly that they intend to cause the appointment of a committee to investigate the activities of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources from 1999 to 2008, focussing mainly on the ministry’s role in the procurement and distribution of fertilizer.

Clearly, fertilizer is big business in Nigeria. Huge sums of money are involved; not surprising therefore that the process is prone to abuse and frauds. And blackmail.

The conventional wisdom, at last since the new administration just under one year ago, is that in the light of available facts on the ground, a lot of things went wrong under the Obasanjo administration. In fact things looked so bad that that there is a growing movement in the country for the current government to waive Obasanjo’s immunity and put him on trial. It’s that bad. That is why various panels, administrative as well those appointed by the legislature, are currently digging into the matter to discover just to what extent the last administration went in telling the nation one thing to keep the people happy, and doing the opposite behind the people’s back in practice. The period May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007, is a government package that has been completed and can be seen in public from one end to the other.

On the other hand, the current administration is still in motion, a package in the process of being put together, incomplete. How would you assess the sum when its parts have not been put together? It does not make sense to me. Apparently, it does to a band of contractors who feel that in the new policy of fertilizer procurement, they have been cut out. From their perspective, in the way they articulated it in petitions advertised in a number of newspapers, the whole idea is replete with bad faith, even fraud. It is a thing if a new measure does not benefit them directly, even if the nation were to be much, much better off for it.

The question to ask is: Why would the National Assembly be persuaded to even contemplate a public hearing on the procurement fertilizer to include the period covering the current planting season? The answer is simple. The ostensible reason is to put the spotlight in one more aspect of government policy under the Obasanjo administration that nine chances out of ten would uncover another can of worms. But the real purpose is to attempt to blackmail the government into reversing its new policy of dealing with a more manageable number of three contractors to procure fertilizer that the country’s farmers need in order to better plan the government’s strategy of encouraging sustainable agricultural output.

Broken into simple language, the new policy means that the government appoints three contractors. The government will hold these ones accountable for any lapse in the arrangement. It contrasts with the pervious arrangement involving over sixty contractors, where dealing with all of them at the same time when the majority failed to deliver, as it so often happened, was certainly a bewildering undertaking, though it provided a cover for some to benefit.

The National Assembly off course has a legitimate oversight functions over government activities. It can, parri passu, undertake oversight duties over the effects of fertilizer policies and their implementation. But to swallow the bait of the fertilizer lobby and be precipitated into doing a hatchet job would only be shooting itself in the foot.

The proper way to go is: What policy was in place? How was the policy implemented? What was the effect of the policy implementation in the context of the overall food security strategy of the country? If there were failures, what elements of the new policy are in place to address them? It is when we have made all these evaluations can we begin to decide whether the new policy represents a welcome departure or detraction from the national objective.

Moreover, there is a Public Procurement Act which stipulates, among other provisions that given contracts should not exceed given number of contractors to handle them. The Act came into force this year. The Senate would be the one to cry ‘foul!’ if the ministry had gone beyond its current measures, which would have amounted to a breach of the law. In this particular instance of three contractors, the minister, through his officials, has explained that the decision was based on evidence that most of the companies that bid for supply did not perform in the past. The three contractors it has now engaged have capacity to handle the volume of fertilizer the country needs, have facilities to blend the five different grades of fertilizer, and have sufficient facilities for re-bagging them for local distribution. The essence in this procedure is the emphasis on public/private partnership in the agricultural revival programme. In fact, in previous arrangements, after much time had been lost in paperwork and negotiations with 68 contractors, by the time some fertilizer start trickling in, the wet season would almost be over. This time, however, contrary to what some of the Senators claimed, the period between contract award and delivery has greatly reduced to December/January, leaving sufficient time for farmers to plan. To dovetail neatly into government plans, the ministry has stepped up its programme to rehabilitate and extend irrigation facilities, increase the stock of tractors to a minimum of 30, 000 units, and establish several agro services nationwide.

There is some element of politics in the petitions now being made to the National Assembly. Some have argued, and there is merit in the argument, that precipitating a probe would in fact only serve in beaming a searchlight on practices in the past in which members of the National Assembly were beneficiaries of fertilizer allocations, which were hoarded and later sold at exorbitant costs to farmers. At the same time, it would expose the truth behind the real motive of the petitioners. To this school of thought, they are asking Abba Ruma to dare the senators threatening to probe the ministry by asking them to “Bring it on!” 

Budget 2008 and Yar’Adua’s stance

 

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