FUEL SHORTAGES MANAGEMENT AND LONG TERM PLANNING IN A CONSTRAINED ECONOMY LIKE NIGERIA.
Nigerians have of recent been going through hard times occasioned by lack of almost everything including power, gas, water and the basic necessities of life. The only things not in short supply are corruption, grand theft and fraud as revealed by the amounts involved in the probes of past government officials. It is the vogue for people to be found stealing billions and trillions of Naira and its equivalent in foreign currencies. Inflation is spiraling, exchange rates have gone through the roof, the economy is not worth writing about and there is palpable fear of the unknown tomorrow. To make matters worse, the utterances of some APC government officials are neither encouraging nor understood for what they were meant to be in the context under discussions. Of recent, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Dr Ibe Kachikwu was reported to have claimed he was not a magician as far as fuel shortages are concerned. While not trying to hold fort for him, I believe he was misunderstood and that he meant to say that the issue of fuel shortages and associated problems predate his ascendancy into office. He should have exhibited more empathy with the suffering masses while making people aware that the issues were being attended to in a timely manner.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
On fuel shortages management, there are many variables and processes involved and each need has to be given adequate attention. Stakeholders include the NNPC and her subsidiary companies like PPMC and Refineries, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)to ascertain quality and quantities, Suppliers, Government that is held responsible for adequacy or otherwise of supply, CBN and Banks as applicable to accept and monitor payments, Legislature to provide adequate laws for the operations of various concerned sections of the economy and the Judiciary to interpret the laws as necessary. In effect, there are tons of parameters to monitor and record in addition to long term planning to ensure adequacy of supply under all conditions. By all conditions, I am referring to extraneous conditions that impact directly or indirectly on the availability and supply of petroleum products. There are dependencies and interrelationships between the conditions, variables and processes that must be synchronized for effective, efficient and reliable delivery of products at established prices in all parts of the federation. The average Nigerian is not interested in the price of oil in the international market, the exchange rate, the state of the refineries, the state of the economy and every other factor or condition that is mitigating against the necessity of delivering products to the people as at and when needed. It is the responsibility of the government of the day through NNPC to ensure adequacy and availability of supply. Similar situations are usually better handled using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems which are configured to incorporate all parameters, conditions, constraints and variables while offering valuable outputs for decision making and audit. With such ERP systems, you use parameters like local consumption, output from local refineries, lead time for orders from abroad to arrive local ports and distribution times as inputs for planning and treat other conditions like minimum inventory and re-order quantities, low oil price level impacting available cash and so on as constraining conditions. The Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS) adopted by the Federal Government is a typical ERP system for Payroll and Personnel management. Since implementation, many benefits have been derived including savings in Payroll bills on discovery of “ghost workers” by their thousands. It should be expanded to cover States, Local governments and all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government (MDAs). This is a typical example of using technology to solve operational problems and reduce waste and theft. In the Supply Chain ERP system that should be the driver for NNPC operations, there is need to document and catalog risks and issues that may impact the schedules and deliveries and proactively analyze and quantify such risks and apply effective mitigating techniques to prevent derailment from set objectives. I am aware that NNPC was trying to implement such a system some time ago but not certain if the system has been implemented and is operational as at today. If not operational, there is the need to urgently implement such a system for its obvious advantages and benefits.
In meeting the challenge of eliminating fuel shortages, there are certain critical conditions that need to be considered. Take for instance the issue of abuse of the importation process where companies were paid for no supply, or payments were made over and above the quantities supplied, these were instances of corruption that need to be detected and punished accordingly to discourage people from such acts. In addition, there is need to set up mechanism to prevent such occurrences in future through the use of ERP systems for effective monitoring and control. A note of advice, no matter how good the plans and processes are, there are people who are busy designing ways to beat the system or make it ineffective for selfish reasons. These are the people against whom we have to be proactive in the design of the system to incorporate checks and balances to minimize the manipulation of the system to their advantage.
Critical factors working against the success of any plans in Nigeria are endemic corruption, grand theft and fraud. Corruption has been ascertained as the greatest detriment to Nigeria’s progress for now. The APC government was voted in based on the promise to tackle corruption head on and it should not renege on that promise. There should be adequate punishment for all culprits irrespective of status, religion, family or political association. There should be justice for all and the situation whereby a few privileged people embezzle the common heritage is not acceptable. Nigerians look forward to the days when the papers and media will report that up to seven ex-governors of a state or three ex-presidents are serving jail terms at the same time on corruption charges as common in sane and developed societies.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
One Less Illinois Gov. in Prison
was an ABC news item in January 2013 as per the extract copied below:
The state of Illinois will see one less governor behind bars today. Former governor George Ryan, 78, was released from federal prison after serving over five years for corruption.
Ryan, a Republican, left a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., five months early qualifying the felon for early release to a halfway house. He will now reside in Chicago at Salvation Army Freedom Center West Side of the City.
Ryan has been imprisoned since 2006 when he was convicted on 22 counts of fraud, racketeering, bribery, extortion and money laundering for accepting bribes in exchange for state licenses among other things.
Before the release of George Ryan, there were six (6) ex-governors of Illinois State alone in prison after conviction on various charges of corruption. I dream of that day when such reports will appear in the media that Nigerian Ex-presidents, Governors, Military Chiefs, Judges, Politicians, Local Government Chairmen etc that almost took the country to the graveyard for greedy selfish reasons are in jail serving long term sentences. Other “notable” people who are in the same prison in Englewood CO for corruption and similar charges in the US for example include Rod Blagojevich former governor of Illinois State serving 14 years, reports have it that he is teaching history to some inmates, Jeffery Skilling former President of Enron serving 24 years and Mike Carona former Orange County, CA Sheriff serving 66 months. In Israel we have Ehud Olmert former Prime Minister serving 8 years on corruption charges. In China, the corruption crackdown is so vast that top officials from every single province (equivalent of a State in Nigeria) have been nabbed and jailed. Most of them are jailed for life or long sentences over 20 years. In all these nations, corruption is attacked frontally and no one is above the law. Corruption does not discriminate against people by virtue of position, tribe, religion, political affiliation, family connection or any other form of stereotypes. Corruption is corruption and must be confronted squarely and punished heavily without exceptions.
On the economy, I believe that the government is right in insisting we can reflate the economy without devaluing the Naira. Non-devaluation should readily be treated as a constraint when developing policies and considering options and strategies for bringing the economy back on the growth track. A note of warning here, there is the need to strengthen and fund the anti-corruption agencies and ensure that they function properly and effectively. There is also the need to watch these agencies so that recoveries are not stolen or misappropriated by their personnel. Funds recovered should be transparently accounted for and judiciously applied to bring relief to Nigerians. Additional cooperation and bilateral agreements are needed to ensure that no matter where the thieves try to hide themselves and their loot, the arm of the law will reach them and get them to vomit their loots and face punishment.
From the spiritual standpoint, I believe Nigeria is on the path of recovery and freedom from bondage of the military and political adventurists that have held the nation to ransom for the past fifty (50) years. 2016 happens to be exactly 50 years since Nigeria had her first incursion of military men with guns into the political affairs of the nation in 1966. The last fifty years have exposed succeeding governments to be more corrupt than the ones they booted out either by the power of the gun or political theft where votes do not count. We have witnessed “Do or Die elections”, selections of criminals in place of elections, murder of political opponents and outright cancellation of elections where the results were unfavorable to our taskmasters. The Bible tells us that every fifty years is a year of Jubilee and freedom should reign. Let us all tap into that jubilee and exercise our freedom from the hands of the military and political adventurists. God bless Nigeria.
Babatunde OLUBANJO.
+1.817.343.9260
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });