Nigerian minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun has set up a body known as the Efficiency Unit to assist government in reducing wasteful spending.
Corruption and mismanagement have stunted development in Africa’s biggest economy and left it with paltry savings and constant power outages after oil prices plummeted.
The Efficiency Unit would be a “critical tool in the management of public expenditure” to ensure “every naira we spend counts”, she said.
The scheme comes as part of a wider crackdown on endemic corruption at the highest level launched since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May.
Buhari has started with a major overhaul of the state-run oil firm, including a comprehensive audit into its opaque accounting practices that he said has seen “mind-boggling” sums go missing.
Government purchases in Nigeria are usually inflated and marked up beyond their real market values. But all that would now stop as Kemi Adeosun explains.
