SHAWWAL 24, 1429 A.H.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 22 2008
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Re-Kano: No king-size fraud, but fraudulent writer
By ADO ALI
ONE of the tragedies of our time is that charlatans and all-comers have been allowed to infiltrate the all-important business of information dissemination especially in the print sector of the Nigerian press. These days, it is common to see all sorts of people running columns in newspapers, dishing out half-truths and/or outright falsehood to the unsuspecting reading public.
Of course there are the serious responsible columnists/reporters, who religiously stick to the journalistic virtue of hearing all sides to a story before publishing. They are the ones that make us continue to see some light at the end of the subsisting dark tunnel, making us believe that sooner than later, the truth is going to overtake falsehood. When this happens (and make no mistake about it: it is going to happen), the grain would be sieved from the chaff and the reading public would be saved the trauma of being recklessly misinformed.
Leadership, a respected newspaper, has of late allowed a certain Sa’idu Muhammad Sanusi to be running a column that goes by the name: Politics in Kano. No one knows the basis on which the newspaper allows a heavily-partisan individual in the mould of Sanusi to be commenting on Kano’s politics, sophisticated as it is. One would expect that a newspaper of Leadership pedigree would engage people who would not sell their conscience for a pot of porridge – and thereby soil its hard-earned reputation, to be running all its columns. Alas! On at least one of two cases, the hard truth is that this has not been so. The victims are the newspaper’s patrons, its readers, in whose throats gutter journalism is being forced on a regular basis.
On Monday, September 22, Sanusi, the ‘colunist’, wrote an article he captioned A King-size Fraud. But it was a king-size mess on the writer’s part. In it, he typically dwelled on a subject he knows very little about. Nothing would have been wrong with this, if only, as other serious columnists would do, Sanusi had chosen the path of decorum to embark on some in-depth investigation and hear all sides to the story. But he was so reckless that he concocted falsehood and even went as far as mentioning names of respected individuals, using the Leadership newspaper to settle scores.
The falsehood; the inconsistencies in Sanusi’s write-up are far too numerous to be fully addressed in a single reply. This rejoinder will therefore only rubbish the more fundamental lies contained in his latest article.
To start with, contrary to Sanusi’s claims, the all-important task of revenue collection for Kano state was NEVER franchised to any individual. The truth is that a reputable body corporate known and registered as Infiniti Segments Limited, a business and systems consultant, submitted a proposal to the government of Kano state, seeking to be allowed to play the part of significantly boosting the revenue profile of the state, at no cost whatsoever to the government. Other companies also submitted their proposal, but Infiniti got an edge over them because of the huge success it has made of revenue collection exercise in Lagos and eight other states.
Infiniti proposed to undertake the task through a state-of-the-art computerized information system linking all tax stations and other government agencies to a central information pool. The whole idea is to allow for monitoring and tracking of revenue collections and other banking activities throughout the state, as well as provide other related benefits such as developing a computerized database of all taxpayers, corporate and individuals. Sanusi had falsely claimed that “the company would issue receipts and take custody of all revenue collected in any bank of its choice for an unspecified period!” Getting angrier, Sanusi went further: “One couldn’t help asking salient questions on the seemingly crooked arrangement.”
You see, this is the problem. junk writers can even cause war. This Sanusi lives in Kano. Getting the facts right would have been very easy for him to do, if his intention had been any different from ill-will and the desperate desire to insult and destroy. In Lagos as in the other nine states, including Kano that Infiniti handles revenue collection, it does not take custody of revenue collected. It has never done so. In any case, it is against government financial regulations to do so. In Kano in particular, the custodian of all government accounts is the accountant general. The coming into being of Infiniti has not changed this.
For the information of Sanusi and all those that may have been taken in by his ill-informed write-up, this system was adopted, as pointed out, by the government of Lagos, a state whose revenue collection drive he seriously hailed, in November 2000. But what he does not know is that the feat was achieved through the same company he ignorantly chastises, that is, Infiniti – the very same company contracted by the government of Kano state to expand its revenue base. Through Infiniti’s novel enterprise and transparent efforts, Lagos state witnessed a phenomenal increase in its internally generated revenue from N600 million to over N13 billion per month, as currently obtains!
Even then, the company is only going to be paid a commission for its services when the monthly revenue exceeds agreed targets. If, for example, N200 million is the average collection per month before the company commenced operations, it will only be paid agreed commission from any amount above – but not including – the N200 million. The Board of Internal Revenue of Kano state has never collected up to N400 million as monthly IGR, as claimed by the ‘columnist.’
But a major sign of the transparency in the whole transaction can also be gleaned from the fact that a baseline of N660 million was set by the Shekarau administration for Infiniti. If at any month they collected the same or less than this amount, not a kobo would go to them. And the contract is not for “an unspecified period,” as Sanusi hysterically alleged. It will run only up to the end of the tenure of Malam Ibrahim Shekarau’s administration in May 2011. All due process was followed since Infiniti made its submission about a year ago. The process was so thorough and painstaking that the whole thing, which started in November 2007, was tidied up in August this year. Where then is the fraud being hysterically alleged by the writer?
Even if Infiniti is going to be paid the 25 per cent commission alleged by Sanusi, simple mathematics, especially looking at the case of Lagos, would show that much, much more stands to be gained by the government of Kano state even if it were to allow the company take a higher percentage as commission.
My checks have confirmed that even before Infiniti submitted its proposal, the government is aware of so many leakages in the revenue collection drive, occasioned not just by corrupt tendencies of some of the staff, but by so many factors, some of which are that the payment procedure are largely cash-based, with no fool-proof, effective control in place to ensure accountability of all revenues collected. More so, lodgments are not properly validated before receipts are issued. Revenue payers collect receipt on presentation of a bank teller, whether or not the cheques are going to clear. Indeed, monitoring of revenue collections, in the rather informal sector used hitherto by the revenue board, is almost impossible due to lack of adequate database.
Some staff of the revenue board, who were beneficiaries of the old order, would obviously stop at nothing to resist the subsisting arrangement which does not give room for corruption of any sort. They were perhaps the ones that deliberately misinformed Sanusi, setting a trap in which he crashed in, heavily demeaning himself in so doing.
Another interesting dimension to the whole transaction is that Infiniti is going to expand the capacity of revenue collectors and other staff of the Kano state Board of Internal Revenue by engaging them in regular training, so that by the expiration of the contract in 2011, the staff would have imbibed the efficient and accountable ways of the company and continue to apply same to the benefit of the government and people of Kano state. The company has spent several tens of millions of Naira, with government not contributing a kobo, to procure expensive equipment for the exercise and the agreement has dictated that all the equipment are going to be left for the use of Kano state. This also answers Sanusi’s question as to relevance of Infiniti operating from the premises of the revenue board.
The truth is that the company has only been allocated a small office in the internal revenue office, as well as in sub-treasury section of the ministry of finance. Infiniti is going to pay rent only through the excellent services and expensive equipment of significant benefits, that it is going to bequeath to the people of Kano state. It has already spent millions of Naira to rent a befitting property in Kano, which is going to serve as its corporate office.
One is also surprised that Sanusi had inadvertently chosen to embarrass and contradict the Leadership newspaper, whose platform he uses to attack and destroy. Recently, the newspaper organized a Northern economic summit, part of the resolution of which is the need for Northern states to beef up their internal revenue base, to enable them become less dependent on our oil-driven economy – with all its uncertainties and unpredictability. By embarking on this exercise, Kano, though it acted independently, is only heeding this clarion call. But here is Sanusi attacking the whole thing that his newspaper initially supported.
Unfortunately, the man only betrayed his partisan nature by recklessly naming Alhaji Bashir Tofa as the “private individual” to whom the new revenue drive is franchised. It is up to him, especially in Holy month of Ramadan, to seek for Tofa’s forgiveness, as he has seriously slandered the man, just as he similarly did in respect of the Head of Service of Kano state, Malam Rabi’u Zakariya’u, and the commissioner for budget, Alhaji Nuor Sani Hanga, who he erroneously and very unfairly accused of misleading the government.
In the case of Bashir Tofa, the truth is that he has never been involved in any way whatsoever with this company and he was not the one who introduced them to Kano state government. The company introduced itself by showcasing its excellent services, just as it did in the three other states it is engaged in enhanced revenue drive. In the cases of the duo of Zakariya’u and Hanga, Sanusi should know that their only involvement was as top government functionaries whose offices had to deal with the matter (Zakariya’u was the Acting Secretary to the State Government at the time Infiniti submitted its proposal. He should, by the nature of that office, be privy to all government transactions, no more, no less).
Instead of condemnation, what the incumbent government of Kano state and its top functionaries involved in this very transparent transaction deserve is praise for embarking on a course that will eventually make the state richer and more independent. Like Lagos, Kano will one day, through this arrangement stand firmly on its feet, with or without statutory grant from the Federation Account.
As to Sanusi, I would advise him to fear Allah, refrain from his misguided ways and in future publish only what he is sure about. If he is serious about revenue collection, let him show example by getting the private school he runs with his wife, Seliaz International School, in Hausawa Quarters, Off Zoo Road, Kano, to be paying taxes to government. But to disparage respected individuals, using “unconfirmed reports” (his words) is neither fair nor just. Since not all readers could be hoodwinked, this crooked style will only rubbish him and the newspaper he represents.
Ado Ali teaches Economics at Shekara Girls Senior Secondary School, Kano. He can be reached on zero4zilch@yahoo.com.
