The recent importation of contaminated fuel into Nigeria, which was reported to be about 100 million liters, is not really unfortunate, it is shameful indeed! Where were those supposed to inspect the imported toxic fuel when it came in? Who and who conducted inspections? Where were the inspectors? Apart from exposing Nigerians to untold hardship and damage to many vehicles, including high-end ones. This has visited a very sad experience for many vehicle owners. And it has equally caused the Federal Government several billion as well.
We would like to point out some more issues related to the corruption of staff of regulatory agencies. As has been observed for long, all regulation points seem to have become theatres of corruption and extortion in Nigeria. Because of this, so many businesses, especially SMEs, daily face dehydration. This should be looked into with appropriate punishments put in place.
Regulatory agencies are supposed to nurture SMEs to ensure the continuous thriving of business in terms of meeting standards for the market and
making the environment conducive for them. But in many cases, this is lacking. One could see a regulatory
landscape riddled with corruption and harassment of SME businesses. The consequences of these are loss of revenue, both to the business enterprise and government.
After sending staff to the field, regulatory agency heads should properly monitor their staff to make sure no games are being played.
There are many incidents where the staff of these regulatory agencies regularly harass and extort businesses, that are not aware of how to tame them. For instance, those in charge of the environment never let the new entrants in the fumigation business, for example, know all that is needed. Look at the water-packaging business for example. Many NAFDAC staff never let the new entrants into the water business know all that needs to be done initially. They will hide away the information on laws guiding such businesses, allowing the business owner to dig boreholes without telling him to first get the environmental staff to do what they need to do. Rather they allow some loopholes to exist. Then they continue to exploit these loopholes for their own benefit.
Regrettably, some regulatory agencies have now turned to revenue-generating agencies. And as they do this, their activities begin to negatively affect the SMEs. This affects their revenue, and equally deprives the government of much-needed revenue.
The regular monitoring of regulatory agencies’ staff is of paramount importance. Their corruption is killing businesses and depriving the government of revenue. Consequently, heads of regulatory agencies should be responsible for the corruption and misconduct of their staff. The senior personnel on the field should understand the seriousness of their responsibility. To these corrupt staff, corruption seemingly offers the right tools for them to construct their own future, taking advantage of business owners and depriving the government of huge revenue. We believe this reflects poorly on the regulatory agencies. If proper action is not taken to punish those expected to conduct oversight functions on the “devil fuel” recently brought into the country, such kind of incidents will be repeated.
We call on the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to have some dedicated lines so entrepreneurs can know who to report to. Also, heads of regulatory agencies need to effectively monitor the activities of their staff and educate the public on what needs to be done, creating regular awareness to prevent undue exploitation and killing of businesses as well as revenue loss to the government.
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