Phantom agencies and the cost of survival
We explore phantom agencies draining public funds, stubborn inflation hitting nineteen states, rising borrowing costs, and Nigerian gold medal dreams.
Good morning,
A friend spent three hours at the secretariat in Alausa yesterday, trying to renew a simple permit. She told me that she was bounced between two desks sitting about three feet apart, both claiming the other was responsible for the final approval. She wanted to scream, but instead, smiled and offered to buy them pure water. Her anger when she gisted me the matter left me thinking about the sheer weight of our civil service.
Biola’s little dance in Alausa is a microcosm of a much larger, more expensive national problem. We are still funding phantom agencies. Despite years of promises to trim the fat and implement the Oronsaye report, Abuja continues to budget billions for commissions and boards that exist only on paper. It is a spectacular bureaucratic illusion.
We have agencies whose sole function seems to be paying salaries to staff who have no desks, let alone actual work to do. When you look at the sheer number of duplicate parastatals, you realise that the government is not just bloated; it is actively creating hurdles to justify its own existence. It is deeply frustrating to watch a country bleed resources while claiming it has no money for essential services.
This waste happens while the rest of the country is suffocating under the cost of basic survival. A new report shows that 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory are still facing punishing levels of inflation. Food prices refuse to bow to whatever economic theories the policymakers are testing out.
When you go to Wuse market, the traders do not care about macroeconomic indicators. They just know that a bag of rice costs more than the minimum wage. The disconnect between the phantom wealth being squandered in Abuja and the very real poverty expanding across these states is staggering.
In an attempt to wrestle this inflation down, the Central Bank of Nigeria has decided to hold the benchmark interest rate steady at 26.5 percent. Think about that for a moment. If you are a small business owner, say, a furniture maker in Ogba, trying to get a loan to expand your workshop, the cost of borrowing is now prohibitive.
The CBN is stuck between a rock and a very hard place, using blunt monetary tools to fix a problem that is largely structural. You cannot simply interest-rate your way out of a food crisis caused by insecurity and bad roads.
Still, in the midst of all this heavy weather, we find ways to dream big. Team Nigeria is packing up for their next international outing with a bold target of 20 gold medals. I had steeled myself for the usual stories of unpaid allowances and late arrivals, but the athletes themselves seem fiercely determined. They train on substandard tracks and still take on the world.
The answer is why you must never bet against the Nigerian spirit, even when the state tries its hardest to weigh it down. We carry the weight of phantom agencies on our backs, yet we still aim for gold. Have a productive Wednesday.
Warmly,
Lolade