Stealing is now a crime, says Adeosun

Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, says stealing of public funds is now a crime and would not be excused for any reason, now that the guidelines are being made clear.

While speaking in Abuja, at the inauguration of a recently approved efficiency unit by President Muhammadu Buhari, Adeosun said poor remuneration should be no excuse for stealing.

“We are setting a benchmark; at the moment, there are no guidelines; and where there are no guidelines, there is no sin. So, we need to establish those guidelines to guide how people spend money,” she said.

“We cannot justify stealing and say because my salary is low so it justifies stealing. Not everybody steals and not everybody is willing to steal, and stealing is not a way to address low remuneration.

“Stealing is stealing and it is a crime; you cannot steal and say because my salary is low that was why I stole. It is not acceptable. We need to address it and we will do so very aggressively. There is no excuse for stealing.”

She said the nation needs to cease depending on oil, but seeing oil as just an icing on the cake, adding that Nigeria’s fiscal house must be put in order.

“So if we make sure all the revenues come in, then oil becomes the icing on the cake and we can say ‘OK, we want to do bridges, we want to do power, housing.

“In the few weeks I have spent as the minister of finance, it has become clear that without a radical intervention to manage the costs of government, no meaningful improvement in our nation will be forthcoming.

“No amount of fiscal innovation, financial re-engineering or other well intentioned economic policies will deliver the desired results for as long as the manner in which government’s money is expended is not carefully controlled.

“We need to put the fiscal house in order. Inefficient spending is systematic and very hard to identify since it is often embedded in the day-to-day activities of the government”.

Citing an example where the same specification of printer cartridges ranged in price from N16,000 to N62,000, Adeosun said her ministry will seek to understand why in many cases, the prices paid for basic services by the government exceed that attainable in the private sector.