The developmental implications of deliberate waste in public service delivery in Nigeria

Abstract

Systematic fiscal malfeasance represents a salient manifestation of corruption, precipitating a depletion of public resources, an escalation in the costs associated with governmental operations, and the provision of sub-optimal public services within Nigeria. This scholarly inquiry critically examined deliberate waste and its influence on service delivery and broader development within Nigeria. The specific objectives of this investigation were to identify the various forms of deliberate waste prevalent in Nigeria and to analyse its consequences for service delivery and national development. The case study research design was adopted to interrogate deliberate waste in Nigeria and relied on secondary data derived from rigorously researched academic papers and scholarly texts for this analysis. The theoretical underpinning of this research was anchored in elite theory, which posits that ruling elites engage in deliberate wastefulness to accrue personal benefits. Such wastage manifests in various forms, including budget inflation, the undertaking of economically unviable large-scale projects, the proliferation of oversized bureaucratic structures, fraudulent payroll practices, the destruction of impounded goods, the misappropriation of slush funds, and the inadequate maintenance of public assets. The research indicated that deliberate wastage detrimentally affected the quality of public service provision in Nigeria, as well as imposing a burden on governmental developmental initiatives. To mitigate deliberate wastage within Nigeria, the study advocated for the establishment of a legislative framework that imposes penalties for the unauthorised
modification of budgetary projections; the implementation of systematic staff verification processes, routine audits of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) accounts; the scrapping of security votes and a reduction in the remuneration of legislators and executives to alleviate governance expenses among other initiatives.