GitHub — Heralding the Open Government (2)

In the first part of this series, we looked at the characteristics of open source that makes it thrive, and saw that openness and transparency were at the very core of this initiative.

I promised to expound on how these values can be forced out of our government, and I shall attempt to do so in this article.

The Open Government

In an open government, the data belongs to the people, who have a right to request it at anytime from the government.

The government, in turn, has a responsibility to provide its data upon request to the people.

The Shareholders

This way, the people are likened to shareholders (because that is who they are) just as in a company run by a board, who require data to make decisions.

If the people are informed, they can be trusted to make informed decisions.

Trust

However, in many cases, we cannot trust the government to provide this information, just as the board cannot trust the books of a management they suspect of foul play.

In such situations, such a board would require external auditors instead, but this is a story for another day.

The Law

Interestingly, the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria gives provision for a Nigerian Open Government.

Wawu!

It gives the people the right and power to request public information from government agencies, and makes sure those agencies comply.

There are fines of N500,000 to be paid to the individual or organisation who made the request if it is not granted within 7 days.

But, can this really work?

You might want to ask a Lawyer

Lawyers have a huge role to play if this is to work out. They have a certain level of respect, where these government agencies are concerned, that a citizen cannot hope to command.

My Local Government would consider a request from Ali Hanson Chambers, before it considers one from me, for obvious reasons.

So, why aren’t lawyers jumping over themselves to sue these agencies?

With the level of ineptitude, it seems like suing the government agencies would be a huge gold mine for law firms who take up this initiative.

So again, why aren’t they doing this?

Perhaps, it’s lack of evidence 🤔 … Lawyers aren’t detectives. They need data, and lots of it. How can they tell that there’s a financial mishap in an institution?

Here come the accountants …

Auditing is conducting an official financial inspection of a company or its accounts.

Now, here’s the purpose of auditing …

The purpose of the statutory audit is to provide an independent opinion to the shareholders on the truth and fairness of the financial statements, whether they have been properly prepared in accordance with the Companies Act and to report by exception to the shareholders on the other requirements of company law such as where, in the auditors’ opinion, proper accounting records have not been kept.

Who are the shareholders? If you’ve been following, you’d know you are.

Can we perform, or get accountants to perform independent audits of the government agencies within our localities?

It turns out auditing government agencies from the outside, while possible in theory, is almost impossible in practice.

Almost!

I spoke with an auditor about the possibility, and he says that audit firms have to be hand-picked by the Auditor General of the Federation.

Why is this even necessary?

I understand possible reasons this could considered necessary.

• The government not wanting to waste time analysing improperly executed audits.

• People misusing the opportunity of auditing public offices for their own gain.

What if we could make it work?

But if there was a reliable way to allow anyone who was interested to audit public offices, not just a select few, the advantages would be massive.

• There would be very little incentive and huge deterrents for any corrupt action a government worker might conceive when one knows his/her department is watched by the public.

• This potential decentralisation of integrity checks would go a long way in the fight against corruption.

Is it possible within the confines of our constitution to create such a system within our Nation?

What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below, and clap for this article if you like it.