The Civil Servant and His Imprest 

IMPREST - My Favourite Word since I started my Latest Romance with the Civil Service in Nigeria. I have others they are Motivation and Appreciation. These words are on the lips of every civil servant in Nigeria but they have a meaning not recorded in the English Dictionary. I will start with appreciation because it is a common reason for insubordination in our civil service, the basis for the indiscipline that has become endemic. A driver required to work with a Director on an assignment will for instance take his boss head on if he is not appreciated. He would have the courage to say ‘oga, I cannot pick you (sic) from house because you no dey appreciate person’ I heard this interchange with my own ears and I was aghast. I was aghast not just because the assignment required that the Director should be picked up from home, but that this no level staff should address his level 17 senior in such rude tones and nothing happened. The director just smiled. I also heard clerical staff tell a Director that ‘oga we no get toner for your printing because you no dey appreciate us’. The printing to be done was official and critical but it made no difference to these junior staff who were not even so much as upbraided while the Director had to look for other means to get his printing done.  

You say, so what else is new, a certain species of animal feeds on itself right? However, that animal dies – a slow and painful death. Corruption is at that level in our civil service it is beginning to die from the inside.  

A courteous thank you is no longer enough from one colleague to another, it has to be accompanied with appreciation, a share of the national cake no matter how minuscule. Appreciation, demanded by subordinates of their senior officers and of each other, is mandatory monetary gratification. They all know the jargon, from driver to Permanent Secretary to Commissioner, and everyone pays, no one complains because they are all guilty of imprest and motivation.  

Motivation. This one is when you as a senior officer receives your share of the imprest for which you provide dud receipts. Every directorate level staff knows the routine. Their junior colleagues are in on it too, they are the ones asked to get the blank receipts. No wonder they act up when they are not appreciated for their efforts. They helped their oga get his share of the imprest. When an assistant director tells you that he has not been motivated, he does not mean that he does not get paid a salary or that he is not provided with tools to work with. For the uninitiated, motivation is the undeclared appreciation received from the head of department. It is paid out of the imprest. There is no clear formula for sharing the imprest among senior officials in a department, each person knows better than he knows his job that he must receive a share of the imprest, his motivation, otherwise he stages his one man campaign against the Director or head of department. 

An unmotivated staff works to rule and he does not need the union to make his protest effective. He comes in late in the morning but signs the attendance register as having arrived two hours before the office was required to open. It does not matter how devout a Muslim or Christian he is, it is the drill and has nothing to do with his religion. Woe betides any junior officer, even if it is one step lower, who comes in before him and clocks in properly. No wonder the attendance registers show that all the officers have been in the office since before day break, but no desk is manned even as late as noon in some offices. Not on seat, a familiar refrain that means anything from he got up to go to the toilet to he died yesterday and will no longer be coming in to work. An assistant director I know signed the attendance register the day before and did not bother to come into the office the next day to show her displeasure for not being motivated since the director had collected the imprest. The rebellion does not stop there. An unmotivated staff only ‘shows face’ and then goes on external duties whether or not it is required of his function. “Not on seat he has outside engagement” trips off the lips of clerks if they suspect you are from an important section of the civil service. External duty may keep an officer away from his desk for weeks on end if he settles his boss. ‘After all no be dis job man dey take keep im family’ 

Every department receives an imprest, an amount of money that is meant to be for office running, making minor repairs, paying utility bills, for minor services, buying stationery and small equipment that is necessary to keep the office going. It is like petty cash and paid out of the bulk sum received by the Ministry from central government purse. The bulk sum from the budget enables effective delivery of those services for which a Ministry is established. Imprests should be strictly accounted for because they derive from the budget. To avoid waste and misuse, policy in Nigeria requires that periodic spot checks, usually monthly, should be carried out to ensure that the person that keeps the cash is not abusing his function. The head of department is also meant to carry out and report on impromptu checks, whether or not he finds discrepancies. The size of an imprest is meant to be determined by real and recurrent needs of the department and should be managed through a top up system. That means that in any given month, a department may not spend all the money in its imprest. Besides, not every department needs an imprest but they all get because it is has become the means for keeping management cadre staff quiet. With it, they become accomplices for looting the national treasury. Their complicity keeps them from asking questions because they too need to protect their secrets. They are unable to come clean about what they did with the imprest. 

In our civil service, every department routinely gets an imprest, that is not determined by financial forecasts or prioritised needs of the department. Nobody is required to draw up a budget at department level, so no justification is provided for the imprest allocated. It is an arbitrary sum not made public and it is kept by the head of department, usually a Director. He alone knows the size of the imprest and he guards the information jealously from the rest o his department. From his imprest he bribes deputy and assistant directors to keep them quiet and happy. He asks for nothing but blank receipts and their loyalty and that they show face in the office from time to time. When a lamp needs replacing nobody asks. When no stationery is provided they get their customers to pay for it. When the office furniture breaks one piece at a time until there are no more chairs or desks to seat at, they blame government. Managers cannot make their staff do any work because they have no moral justification to do so, even when the staff have been appreciated. Everybody is in on the dirty secret, they are all sated on imprest and must live with the smell of their dirty toilets and cavort in filthy offices because the imprest provided by government to ensure a conducive work environment has been shared, divided up and used to meet private needs 

Still we turn around and blame government, as we should. These are government agents and they have been left to run wild, with no supervision, no management and no fear of sanctions. It is a deliberate and unwritten policy of those in power it would seem. Why else would we set up elaborate accounting and financial systems, supported by audit departments and not avail of them to ensure accountability? This unwritten policy has been used along with convoluted protocols and respect systems that keep civil servants paralysed, unable to contribute effectively, no matter how highfaluting their qualifications and positions. They cannot make decisions, they cannot even make suggestions and are unwilling to take responsibility for anything. Read any letter from a ministry or government department and more likely than not it will start with “I have been directed to…” even when it has been signed by a director. Who does the directing I wonder. The only thing he is wiling to do is to manage the bulk of his imprest into his private pocket. 

Suggest to a head of department that he should declare his imprest, at least to his senior managers so that office operational needs are prioritised and provided from these funds that have been made available and he may send assassins after you. That is his share of the national cake. He paid his dues coming up the ranks and now it is time to reap. We all know that it makes for better management, if nothing is kept secret about public resources, if civil servants at all levels are empowered to ask for tools they need to do their work, to deliver good service to the rest of us public. The irony is that the policies provide for this but the fathers have eaten sour fruits and they have set the children’s teeth on edge.