By Ifere Paul| 27 July 2015| 5:26am
We are all aware of the functions and roles international development partners (commonly known as donor agencies) play in supporting the affairs of sovereign national and subnational governments, mostly in developing economies of the world, including Nigeria and her state governments. Most state governments in Nigeria, that are cash trapped but appreciate what these international development partners offer them, have received them with open hands since they came into power two months ago. But the reverse is the case in Cross River State, which happens to have courted the fancy and favours of these agencies by enjoying appreciable support and assistance from such major international development partners as the World Bank (with eight on-going programmes/projects in the state), the European Union (with Cross River State being one of the six EU-focal states in Nigeria), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), African Development Bank (AfDB), United Nations and its agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNODC).
It is sad to note that from about June 18 or 19, 2015, His Excellency, the Governor of Cross River State, Senator Ben Ayade, took it upon himself, and without resorting to any superior opinion/advise from technocrats and/or using conventional best banking practices, placed restrictions/bans on the operation of all state government/government-related accounts, including all donor-funded projects accounts in the state with their various bankers. On Thursday, July 9, 2015, the Governor summoned the programme/project managers of these donor-funded projects in the state to his office to meet and dialogue with them directly with a view to getting some briefings from them on the implementation of their programmes/projects. The Governor used the occasion to give consent to some of the programmes/projects managers so that they could meet their immediate commitments/obligations to their contractors and other services providers. This is the same briefing the Governor rebuffed on several occasions when the then Special Adviser in charge of International Development Cooperation in the past administration tried to take him through his bit. We understand that one of the major international development partners, the World Bank, with huge investments running into millions of dollars, is not taking it kindly with the Governor’s unilateral action and have prepared a Task Team to be led by its Acting Country Manager to join one of the available flights to Calabar next week to hear directly from the Governor why he restricted their programmes/projects from carrying out their legitimate operations in accordance with the agreements they entered into with the state government.
But how can Ayade antagonise with these development partners if he’s really serious about developing the state as he has loud-mouthedly told every Cross Riverian. However, unknown to His Excellency, there are grave misconceptions for taking such actions against these international development partners in the state as their implications have far reaching consequences for the state, some of which are as follows:
1. Most of the on-going programmes/projects of the development partners may not be able to meet their implementation targets as set out in their work, procurement and disbursement plans. Cross River State Government entered into a subsidiary agreements with these donors to deliver on the activities spelt out in their programmes/projects at specified times. The work, procurement, disbursement plans assigned to be implemented by the programmes/projects are, therefore, time-bound with timelines and deliverable targets. Continuous restriction of access to the programme/project’s account with their bankers is in violation of the contractual covenants between the Cross River State Government and the development partners.
2. Some programmes/projects are designed in such a way that their managers would disburse an appreciable amount budgeted for a particular period of time to enable them compete for more funding for the next stage of the programmes/projects. Also, some of the programmes/projects have just taken off this year and are entering the most critical stages of their implementation where lots of fund disbursements would be made through their bank accounts.
3. Funds for most of the programmes/projects are pooled amongst six states together and disbursements depend on the absorptive capacity of Cross River State as a participating state in those programmes/projects. As such, if the state cannot drawdown on its allocated funds as expected, other performing states would absorb the resources meant for the state. Consequently, this may lead to the state paying some penalty for refund of funds not spent and commitment charges to the donors.
4. The inability of the programmes/projects to meet their contractual obligations to their third parties may lead these contractor/vendors to invoke the interest penalty clauses on their contracted, but delayed payment sums, after some days of non-payment of such sums to the third parties
