Nigerian public officers are in the habit of exposing the country to international embarrassment. The country has of late been in the news for obvious wrong reasons. With the latest development being our avaricious public servants and politicians' insatiability with misappropriation of local resources and funds which has plunged our richly blessed country into underdevelopment and internationally acclaimed reputation for corruption.
According to Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC) in a petition dated November 19, 2014 and signed by its Chairman, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) a ‘public-private’ global health organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland launched in 2000, recently granted funds to Nigerian Government for the procurement of vaccines and the development of the health sector, specifically for Nigerian children. The organisation assists developing countries by providing them with vaccines and cash support to help protect children.
In a petition addressed to the EFCC Chairman by CSNAC, the network stated that consequent upon the grant disbursement, GAVI through its Cash Program Audit (C.P.A), investigated how disbursed funds given to Nigeria was spent. Having investigated cash grants allocated to Nigeria between 2011-2013, C.P.A came up with an indicting report of fraud and mismanagement of funds by the Nigerian government through Federal Ministry of Health and National Primary Health Care Development Agency, under the former Minister.
In response to this discovery, as contained the CSNAC petition, "the Nigerian government admitted her culpability through a letter titled ‘Letter of Understanding on the Principles Regarding the GAVI Cash Program Audit 2011-2013’, dated October 17, 2014 and signed by the former Health Minister, Professor C.O. Onyebuchi Chukwu. In a bizarre manner, the Ministry agreed to return the amount of misused fund as requested by GAVI. The amount being a sum of $2.2million. Due to this mismanagement of funds, GAVI has stop further disbursement of funds to Nigeria, pending when concrete and convincing steps are taken to checks ominous corruption in our health sector."
Nigeria has been receiving support from GAVI since 2002 and the implication of the organisation's latest action is that the lives of many Nigerian children would be endangered by their exposure to deadly diseases. GAVI is said to have expressed concerns over possible non remittance of taxes paid by it to F.I.R.S. It therefore demanded EFCC investigate the rot in the Nigerian health system.
CSNAC, a network of over 150 groups was by the petition "requesting an immediate and thorough investigation into this self-admitted fraud and mismanagement of fund in the Federal Ministry of Health; with a view to bringing to justice all those involved in the exposure of the country to this international opprobrium and also, ensure the retrieval of the fund concerned from the purse of individuals who misappropriated. The network demands the refund to GAVI should be from retrieved misappropriated fund and not the country's coffer.