The dollar zillionaires club

After fifty years in the accountancy profession, the Seventy Senior Elders felt entitled to challenge the stereotype image of chartered accountants.  Without going into specifics, accountancy is a truly challenging profession.  What has enabled us to not only survive but cherish our success (and also admit our failures) is our willingness to accept kindness from strangers.  Indeed, help always comes from totally unexpected quarters.  This has certainly been the case with regard to our dealings with the Secretary-General of the United Nations; the President of the World Bank; and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

All three of them are Zillionaires on account of the powerful institutions they lead.  This is a uniquely beguiling case of strongmen/lady holding sway over the world’s most formidable financial and social engineering turbines.  The world’s best kept secret is that the United Nations as well as World Bank and the International Monetary Fund can print their own money!!  Their cheques are never returned.  Once they write you a cheque, no matter the amount, it is as good as money in the bank.  What else could you want provided you deliver goods or services – especially strategic thinking?

Following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) about the merit of merging the United Nations with both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the enthusiastic support of their respective chief executive has been outstanding.  As for the fees we would charge for our services (being ex-KPMG partners), what was agreed was ten per cent of all savings.  This is in accordance with global Best Practice.

We also compiled the list of offices each organization had in New York and Washington DC as well as virtually every country in the world.  Henceforth, there would be only one office in each country.

From the organogram of the United Nations; the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, it was pretty obvious that a great deal of savings would be achieved by slashing institutional bureaucracy without compromising efficiency.

Then we looked at the offices and residences all over the globe – all in prime locations.  Most of them are rented (or on long leases) while a significant number are owned by the United Nations, the World Bank the International Monetary Bank.

We have embarked on a comprehensive stocktaking of private jets, motor vehicles, yachts, ambulances, telephones, fixtures and fittings, air-conditioners, First Aid boxes, etc.  The figures are amazing especially when we added those of agencies under the United Nations; the World Bank and IMF.  The total is staggering.

When it came to the issue of staffing, we were dumbfounded by the number of chartered accountants in all these agencies!!  We have resolved to keep them.

As for other staff, they have to go.

There are many other areas where we were able to establish that the savings would be enormous once the process is commenced.  As the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would be saving zillions of dollars our ten per cent fee as Consultants would make all the Seventy Senior Elders (including the Cardinal amongst us) instant zillionaires!!

It is a measure of the excellent quality of leadership combined with first class intellect and supremely calm temperament of Mr. Ban Ki-moon (United Nations); Mr. Jim Yong Kim (World Bank); and Mrs Christine Lagarde (IMF) that they themselves suggested there could be considerable savings in appointing only one service provider of information about Africa (especially Zimboda and Nigeria) instead of being bombarded with multiple sources such as the following:

(i) Front page editorial “The Punch” newspaper of October 8, 2014.

Headline: “MALABU: THE LOST ANTI-GRAFT WAR

TRY as he might, President Goodluck Jonathan convinces no one that the government he heads is tackling corruption.  Further proof of this is unfolding as Italian and British authorities reopen investigations into the long-running scandal involving Malabu Oil and Gas Company over alleged corrupt payouts of bribes in the shady resolution of the Oil Prospecting Licence 245 orchestrated by this administration.  Reversing our odious reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt countries appears to be a forlorn hope.  The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has also reopened the case.

Emerging details suggest an escalation of corruption at the highest rungs of Nigerian officialdom, but this is all too familiar to a benumbed population.  According to agency reports, prosecutors in Milan, Italy, have intensified a probe into allegations that half of the $1.1bn that oil giants, ENI and Shell, paid to OPL 245 was used to bribe politicians, intermediaries and fronts.  The scandal acquires added weight when it is remembered that the $1.1bn was brokered by Nigerian officials and later spiritedly defended by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke.  “The role played by the Federal Government and its agencies in relation to block 245 was that of facilitator of a long-outstanding dispute between Malabu and SNUD over ownership of right to block 245,” Adoke said.  He further stated that the allegation of round-tripping leveled against the Federal Government in some sections of the media was without basis and could not be substantiated.

But Italian prosecutors allege that more than half of the $1.1bn ENI and Shell paid for the OPL and passed through official Nigerian channels ended up being shared out as kickbacks to our corrupt officials and their collaborators.  In a correspondence to United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service, which is also investigating possible money laundering activities over the transaction involving Nigerian officials and some individuals using British companies. It was alleged that beneficiaries of the bribes used the illicit money to buy private jets and luxury armored cars.  Reports said London Metropolitan Police have already frozen two UK accounts holding about $190m belonging to the chief intermediary in the scandal.  Even our own EFCC had reported then that “investigations conducted so far reveal a cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings….a prima facie case of conspiracy, breach of trust, theft and money laundering can be established against some real and artificial persons.”  But what happened thereafter?  Or what do you expect from a President who pardoned Diepreiye Alamieyeseigha, sentenced in 2007 for corruption-related charges?  Whose interest did the Nigerian Attorney-General serve in the controversial settlement?

This is really an insidiously messy affair.  The tragedy of Nigeria under Jonathan is not, as he and his apologists are ever so quick to point out, that corruption or all the numerous corrupt cases began with his administration.  The distinguishing mark of his leadership, however, is that there is no sincere effort to turn the tide.  The administration has not only rendered the existing anti-graft institutions comatose, it has taken the culture of impunity to a new low.

No country can ever reach its full potential with the level of corruption Nigeria is witnessing.  Just as it was the United States, France, Germany and Italy that jailed officials and imposed heavy fines on the foreign firms that gave bribes to Nigerian officials in the Halliburton and Siemens scandals, the U.K. and Italy are set to demonstrate that no responsible state deliberately permits violation of its laws or encourages corruption.

J.K Randle