An X-ray of
Obasanjo’s Economic Management
By
Tunji Braithwaite,
culled
from THISDAY, December 21, 2005
The subject matter of
this article is intended to upgrade and pack greater power and seriousness into
the war against corruption in our country. Although it is not yet a war,
nonetheless Obasanjo's laissez-faire and pretended shadow-boxing with corruption
is indeed subjective, and certainly dubious with its rules of engagement known
only to him. And this portends danger for the people whose resources and
properties have and are being plundered with such a reckless abandon that
actually reduces the Nigerian people to slaves, shorn of all rights whatsoever.
In my keynote address to the Citizens Forum at their last September symposium, I
declared: "There is another core issue to be taken up with the issue of the
debauchment of the national currency. Many people do not realize that a
substantial part of the sufferings of our people is traceable to the deliberate
debasement of the national currency, apart from the wholesale corruption in high
places. The excruciating and unending hardship experienced by our people is
manifest in the high level of unemployment, dilapidated public infrastructure,
collapse of the energy sector, crime and disease, non-payment of the salaries
and entailments of workers and pensioners and the forced closure of industrial
outfits due to adverse operating condition.
I discussed at some considerable length the corruption of the Nigerian monetary
system by the military juntas which, not long ago, had imposed themselves in
governments of Nigeria. In concluding the address, I gave my word to bring to
the public domain the details of not only the criminal debauchment of the
naira, but especially the wholesale diversion of billions of dollars of oil
earnings from the countryís account, that started from the Babangida's junta
till date.
With the publication by THE NEWS magazine issue of 23rd May, 2005 of the
Executive Summary of the 335-page report of the Okigbo Panel, we now know that
the main finding of the Panel is on the Dedication Account operated by the
Babangida junta: A quantity of crude oil was dedicated to the prosecution of
certain ëpriorityí projects. The proceeds of the sale of the crude were not
shown in the revenue side nor were the expenditures reflected in the expenditure
side of the budget. The budget contains information on the quantity of crude
dedicated, but not the revenue therefrom nor time expected disbursements from
this account. The account was kept outside the consolidated revenue account so
that apart from a few members of the Government, no else has any information on
the size of the account or of the size and manner of the disbursements. It
represented, in reality, a second but undisclosed budget operated only by the
President and the Governor of the Central Bank.
The emphasized portions of this finding are indications of how the budget system
in Nigeria was (and is still) being criminally breached. One basic condition
that must always be adhered to in the proper operation of budgets is, as Jesse
Burkhead puts it in his book, Government Budgeting: that items of revenue should
not be earmarked for special purposes, but that ALL revenue should be paid into
and paid out of a consolidation fund.
Hence today, governments all over the world collect all their revenues and incur
all expenditures only through their budgets.
The budget in Nigeria is denominated in the naira currency, but where revenue
receipts accrue in the first instance in form of foreign currencies, certain
steps must be taken to make such receipts conform with the requirement that all
government revenue must be routed through the budget. The steps are that: all
government foreign currency receipts must be entered in full as credits in the
Balance of payments and in other relevant primary records such as the schedules
of exports of crude oil and gas, of oil blocks sold, of GSM licences issued, of
looted funds recovered; and all such foreign currency receipts must be paid in
full into the Central Bank's overseas accounts and entered in such primary
records as the CBN domestic Accounts and Balance of Payments statement; and the
local currency equivalent of all such foreign currency receipts paid into the
CBN's external accounts must be credited in full to the nationís main budget and
entered in such primary records as the Federation Account or the Consolidated
Revenue Fund.
However, what the Okigbo Panel found was that foreign currency earned from the
sales of the dedicated crude, from the NNPC Sales of Mining Rights and Signature
Bonus Accounts, as well as from crude oil sales during the Gulf War in excess of
budgeted provisions, were not shown in the revenue side of the budget. Thus step
3 of the requirements listed above was not complied with in this instance and by
such non-compliance, step 2, also could not have been complied with.
Before the Okigbo Panel was set up, an article was published in the June 27,
1991 edition of the Financial Times of London which exposed Nigeria's increased
earnings from crude sales during the Gulf War. The article, written by William
Keeling and titled "Concern At Use of Lagos Oil Windfall", rattled the Babangida
junta, that it ordered the unlawful deportation of William Keeling from Nigeria.
Nevertheless, the article played a significant role in the events which led to
the appointment of the Okigbo Panel of enquiry. The portion of the article which
Babangida found offensive says: "Of the estimated $5 billion which Nigeria
reaped from the increased sale of oil during the Gulf crisis, at least $3
billion of that amount could not be accounted for in the Central Bank figures
for the July 1990 through May 1991."
Mr. Keeling was writing at and of a period which subsequently was covered by the
terms of reference of the Okigbo Panel, and in saying that at least $3 billion
was not accounted for in the books of the CBN, he was saying the same thing of
this particular amount as the Okigbo Panel was subsequently to confirm in its
findings of the global official foreign exchange receipts (including the $3
billion) which were not entered in the revenue side of the budget. While Mr.
keeling made his point in terms of the CBN external account or in the language
of step 2 of the requirements for dealing with foreign exchange revenue
receipts, the Okigbo Panel made the same point in terms of the budget or in the
language of step 3. As has been said, steps 2 and 3 are the two sides of the
same transactions. And when Mr. Keeling talked of the amount of $5 billion which
Nigeria reaped from increased sale of oil during the Gulf war, he was calling
attention to the primary procedure of step 1.
The Okigbo Panel was given a strict and restricted mandate, that is, "to
examine the use of the dedication and other special accounts" and in this
connection the Panel found that the funds on the accounts ëwere spent on what
could neither be adjudged genuine high priority nor truly regenerative
investments(made through) disbursements clandestinely undertaken. "The total
amounts received into these accounts between 1988 and June 1994 was US$12.4
billion, based clearly on whatever records of the dedication and special
accounts government officials chose to place before the Panel. Even though the
Panel did make a most vital finding that "The proceeds of the sale of the crude
were not shown in the revenue side nor were the expenditures reflected in the
expenditure side of the budget." The strict mandate given to it would not
enable it to expatiate on this finding. But anyone interested enough to take a
cue from this finding would be able to determine, with reasonable level of
accuracy, the amounts diverted from crude sales proceeds, be it to the
dedication or other special accounts or to other unknown criminal destinations.
The CBN publishes annually the country's balance of payments which shows the
amount of crude exports. It also publishes the country's fiscal operations
which show amounts accruing to the Federation Account from crude oil export
operations. The values of crude oil exports and the amounts accruing to the
Federation Account from crude exports must necessarily be equal. The Okigbo
Panel would have looked into these open records to talk of proceeds of the sale
of crude not being shown in the revenue side of the budget.
The public records on which the Okigbo Panel relied to make its finding are
still there, regularly updated as they have continued, even to the present day,
to indicate that part of the proceeds of the sale of crude oil are not shown in
the revenue side of the budget. And to shed more light on the situation, an
exercise has been undertaken in the Table appearing in this Article comparing
the amounts of crude exports as shown in the balance of payments with amounts
shown in the Federation Account as proceeds of crude oil exports. The Table
covers not only the years of Babangida's junta looked at by the Okigbo Panel,
but also for some years before then and some years after, including all the
years of Obasanjo's current tenure up to 2003. Column 2 of the Table shows the
year's total federally collected revenue, including receipts from oil export
activities shown in column 3. Foreign currency earnings from oil export
activities as they appear in the Balance of Payments statements are shown in
column 4. Normally, amounts appearing in columns 3 and 4 should be equal to each
another as has been pointed out; they represent the two currency values of the
same amounts. Since 1987, however, the amounts in column 4 exceed those in
column 3, indicating that not all the oil export proceeds have been taken into
the budget as revenue, as they should. The amounts of the difference are shown
in column 6 and they represent, as the Okigbo Panel said of them, 'proceeds of
the sale of crude not shown in the revenue side of the budget' or, as Keeling
put it, oil sale proceeds 'not accounted for in the Central Bank figures'.
From column 6 of the Table, it can be seen that the total amounts by which the
Federation Account was short-changed on account of earnings from oil export
activities between 1988 and 1994 was in the neighbourhood of the naira
equivalent of some whopping US$29 billion. In the records presented to the
Okigbo Panel, however, only US$10.5 billion of this amount found their way into
the dedication accounts.
During the current Obasanjo's presidency, between 1999 and 2003, there was a
total shortfall in the amounts that should have been credited to the Federation
Account of the budget as revenue from oil exports of the naira equivalent of
over US$30 billion.
Funds earned from oil export activities but diverted (that is, amounts appearing
in column 6) are-not transferred from the Consolidation Fund or otherwise from
earned budget revenue; rather they represent under-credits of revenue actually
due to the budget. The funds are diverted from the country's official foreign
currency earnings before they could be credited into the country's legitimate
overseas accounts and, as such, there are no naira equivalents of them to get
into the Federation Account. What has been happening is that a group of people
among those running the Federal government sit down and decide what proportion
of the oil export proceed should be credited to ëtheirí furtive accounts and
what they would graciously leave to accrue to the nationís conventional
accounts.
With the full amounts of the earnings from oil export as credits in the Balance
of Payments statements, the next logical steps to take would be to also credit
(in foreign currency) the CBNíS external account and credit (in naira) the
Federal Account, with the full amounts of such oil export proceeds as recorded
in the Balance of Payments. But these people want their 'share' of the foreign
currency proceeds up-front, as attempts to pullout this share after the CBN's
external accounts and the Federation account had first been credited with the
full amounts of the proceeds would be too obvious and could raise objections
from the other beneficiaries of the Federation Account. So, all the matters
relating to the underhand transactions of diverting official foreign exchange
funds have to be completed in the Balance of Payments statement, before the
Federation Account comes into the picture. With the Balance of Payments
statement having been credited with the full oil export proceeds, the debit side
of the statement would thus need to be adjusted (that is, cooked or dressed up)
to cover up for the funds illegally pulled out. And the accounts employed for
this nefarious purpose include the Imports, the Services and the Capital
Accounts of the Balance of Payments.
In the Balance of Payments statements, import payments are shown under two
sub-headings - Oil imports and Non-oil imports. Oil imports are imports said to
have been brought into the country for crude oil production and prospecting
purposes and non-oil imports are those others brought in by the non-oil private
sector and governments. In 1985, government introduced, in connection with
non-oil imports, the measure of issuing import licences not valid for official
foreign exchange cover with the objective that payments for imports covered by
such licences would no longer be made with official foreign exchange. This
objective was stated in many clear official statements including one made on
page 5 of the 1986 CBN Report to the effect that:
"The issuance of import licences was streamlined to conform with the tight
foreign exchange budget while import licences not valid for foreign exchange
were issued to reduce disbursements through the official channel".
With the situation since 1967 being that payments for all imports were made with
official funds, the new arrangement, under which payments for imports covered by
licences not valid for official foreign exchange would be made with private
funds, would therefore vastly improve the country's balance of payments and the
official reserves levels.
However, despite that licences not valid for foreign exchange made up 62.4 per
cent of total licences issued in 1985, the year's Balance of Payments statement
totally ignored to record, or to otherwise reflect in any manner, the vast
amounts of imports covered by such licences. The statement pointedly failed to
take into consideration the very substantial savings of official foreign
currency which should, and which other parts of the CBN Reports acknowledged
would, accrue to the official foreign exchange accounts from that class of
imports. Instead, all imports, including those covered by licences not valid for
foreign exchange and for which no official foreign exchange were, in fact,
provided, were treated in the balance of payments statement as if they were paid
for with official foreign exchange. The official foreign exchange account was
thus over -debited with the amounts of imports actually paid with private, and
not official, foreign exchange.
From 1987, figures became available of the extent to which official foreign
exchange had actually been provided to meet payments for non-oil imports: In
that year, non-oil imports totaled US$3.67 billion of which the CBN provided
US$2.30 billion. In the balance of payments statement, however, the whole amount
of US$3.67 billion was treated as having been paid with official foreign
exchange and there was thus an over-charge to official foreign exchange account
of US$1.37 billion in that year. And this was the extent to which the nation's
foreign exchange was diverted from the official account on account only of
non-oil import payments.
Overcharging import payments to the official foreign exchange account thus
became, from 1985, a primary and underlying method for diverting official
foreign exchange funds into avenues over which the country has no formal control
and from which it derives no benefits. The diverted amount are not credited to
the CBN's external accounts and, thus, there are no naira equivalents of them to
reach the Federation Account.
Column 7 of the Table shows the cif cost of all non-oil imports which,
invariably, is treated in the Balance of Payments accounts as having been paid
for in full with official foreign exchange. Official information is, however,
also available in the same CBN Reports of the actual amounts of official foreign
exchange sold by the CBN to meet payments for non-oil imports covered by
licences valid for official foreign exchange cover. These CBN sales are shown in
column 8. The amounts by which figures in column 7 exceed those in 8 are shown
in column 9 and these represent non-oil import over-payments surreptitiously
smuggled out of official coffers.
A total of over US$20 billion was over-charged to the non-oil import account and
official foreign exchange to that extent, thus diverted, between 1988 and 1994.
In the period 1999 to 2003 of Obasanjoís presidency, a total of US$5.43 billion
was similarly involved.
The Capital Accounts of the Balance of Payments are used to divert official
foreign exchange by compromising, since 1987, a fundamental rule relating to
balance of payments accounting. Entries in Balance of Payments statements are
made up of official and private external transactions, with official
transactions predominating. Official debits are met with official credits in the
same statement, but where the total official credits are less than the yearís
total official debits, the difference is drawn from the CBNís external reserves.
If total official credits exceed total official debits, the difference goes to
increase the CBNís external reserves for that year. On the other hand, all
private credits in the statement are used up entirely by private debits in the
same statement and the year's private credits are always equal to the year's
private debits. Besides, private debits can only be charged to private credits
and official debits cannot be charged private credits.
In 1987, the 'Other Capital (short-term)' account, a hitherto sleepy account
which up to 1986 usually reflected only small credit balances, suddenly burst
into life recording a staggering revised deficit of US$2, 117.4 million, and
that transaction marked the commencement of the swindle of using the 'Private'
and the 'Other Capital short-term' sub-heads of the Capital Account to divert
official foreign exchange. The debit balance reflected on the account in 1987,
as well as the debits it carried in 1988, 1989 and 1990, though cloaked as
private debits, were, in fact, not reflections of any truly official or private
transactions but of totally false and spurious ones. Nevertheless, having been
smuggled into the Balance of Payments, the purported debits could not be ignored
and they have had to be accommodated somehow, as the balance of payments must
always balance. There were no corresponding private credits to match these
debits and they had to be charged to the official foreign exchange account which
had funds to accommodate them As they represented no tangible transactions, the
debits, in effect, released foreign exchange for diversion from the official
account, as was the intention of those who raised and posted the spurious debit
transactions in the first place.
One other way the Capital account of the Balance of Payments is used to
illegally drain official foreign exchange is to claim that some crude oil
shipments were sold on credit and the proceeds not received. This method was
first used in 1992 and repeated in 1993 and 1996 but used continuously from 1999
to 2003. The usual manner of reporting these purported credit sales of crude is
to say in the CBN Reports that the amounts are "short-term claims on the rest of
the world in respect of oil sector transactions". It is unusual for crude to be
sold on credit, but even if the credit sales actually took place, it would be
expected that the proceeds would have been recovered and credited to the
official account within a short period thereafter. But not even one cent has
been recorded as recovered in connection with any of the purported credit sales
(the first of which was recorded as made in 1992) and the crude oil credit sales
ploy has become a major method of siphoning official foreign exchange.
Up to 1999, amounts of the purported credit sales of crude were debited to the'
Other Capital short - term' Account. In 2000 and 2001, the amounts were buried
deep in the Balance of Payments figures and some figuring has to done to fish
out the facts. In 2002 and 2003, amounts of crude said to have been sold on
credit were shown under the 'Private' subhead of the Capital Account even though
these amounts were effective debits to official funds.
Amounts of official foreign exchange diverted by manipulation accounts of the
Balance of Payments are shown in column 10 of the Table 6. During the period
1994, these spurious debits to the Capital accounts totalled US$11.68 billion
and these represented illegal diversions from the official foreign exchange
accounts.
During the period 1999 to 2003 a total of US$23 .77 billion was debited to the
Capital Accounts as credit sales of crude oil for which payments were not
received. Included in this figure is the amount of US$5 .87 billion representing
the value of the purported crude credit sales in 2003 as it appears in the 2003
CBN Report. In the revised 2003 statement as it appears in the 2004 CBN Report,
however, the amount of the crude oil credit sales has been increased to US$10.10
billion. To accommodate the upward revision of the amount of the purported crude
credit sales in 2003, the amounts of import payments for 2003 were substantially
revised downwards in the 2004 Report. This indicates that over US$10 billion was
actually diverted from the official funds in 2003 by way of purported credit
sales of crude but only US$5.87 billion of this amount was shown as such in the
2003 Report while the rest was hidden in the imports figures. The revised 2003
statement as contained in the 2004 Report paints another picture of what is said
to have taken place in 2003 with (regards to imports payments and purported
credit sales of crude, but the new picture has come out at a time and in the
manner that attract the least of attention.
Some other underlying transactions are manipulated in the Balance of Payments to
facilitate illegal diversions of official foreign exchange. One such transaction
relates to payments for oil imports which are charged to the official foreign
exchange account as shown in column 11 of the Table. Government contributes to
the running costs of the oil joint ventures and the costs of oil imports should
logically be charged to the contributed joint venture funds. But by recording
these payments as charges to official foreign exchange the amounts involved are
freed for diversion from official control.
Another expenditure sub-head in the Balance of Payments which appears to be an
additional drainage pipe for official foreign exchange is the purported
remittances of oil companies' profits from official foreign exchange account,
charged to the Services and Income Account. Oil producing companies pay taxes
to, and buy crude oil from, government and it looks rather odd that profits
arising from the oil transactions should need to be charged back to the sales
proceeds paid to government. Amounts of such profit remittances are shown in
column 12 of the Table. From 1999, the CBN ceased to publish details of the
Services and Income Account from which details of oil companies ' profit
remittances were being extracted. Hence no figures appear in column 12 from
1999.
The Okigbo Panel found that the Babangida junta maintained accounts with the
Bank of International Settlement (BIS) Basle which, no doubt, provided external
banking support for funds diverted from the mainstream government accounts. The
balances on these were not under the control of the Central Bank and did not
count as part of Nigeriaís external assets. The Panel recommended that the
accounts should be closed taken into the external reserves of the CBN. This
recommendation ignored and all governments subsequent to Babangida's continued
to maintain similar accounts overseas.
The present Obasanjo regime keeps accounts with the BIS and, at a time, had a
£100 million deposit account with HSBC, with which it may still have banking
relations. The balances on these accounts are not under the CBN's control and do
not count as official reserves. Funds accrue to the accounts from the illegal
manipulation of the Balance of Payments as it relates to non-oil imports,
purported crude oil credit sales, oil imports and oil companies profits. These
types of diversions are covered by the Table. Other funds credited to the
accounts would include diverted official foreign exchange receipts from oil
blocks' sales, GSM licence fees, the so called Abacha loot recovery exercises,
and the likes of them. These receipts are not entered in the Balance of Payments
statements and are not credited to the regular CBN external accounts and their
naira equivalent do not reach the Federation Account. These types of diversions
cannot be included in the Table as details of them are not in the public domain.
The finding by the Okigbo Panel that some foreign exchange receipts were not
shown in the revenue side of the budget highlights how the budget system was
being breached. The budget developed as a system for ensuring that those
entrusted with the management of national finance do so in the best interests of
the citizens. In Britain, the 12th article of the Magna Charta of 1217 was the
beginning of efforts to impose representative or popular control over the
sovereignís hitherto whimsical management of public funds. One of the groups
which agitated for the adoption of the budget system in the United States
enunciated further what a proper budget system is expected to achieve. According
to Frederick A. Cleveland in his book, Evolution of the Budget Idea in the
United States, the group premised its agitation on.
"This growing hostility to doing business in the dark, to 'boss rule, to
invisible government, became the soil in which the 'budget idea' finally took
root and grew".
The criteria for operating the budget as a tool for the proper management of
public funds gradually built up over centuries and one lasting condition that
came to be associated with the system is, as has been noted, that all revenue
should be paid into and paid out of a consolidation fund. Some countries back
this crucial requirement with the force of law and in Nigeria, the
Constitutions, invariably, have provided that "All revenues or other monies
raised or received by the Federation shall be paid into and form one
Consolidated Revenue Fund "
Today, governments are supposed to be manned by honourable people who seek only
for the welfare of the people and the main focus of the budget has shifted from
(but has not discarded) the need to guard against conducting government business
in the dark, to an instrument for development geared towards the creation of
full or high employment and the achievement of improving living standards for
the people. Gladstone puts it thus.
"Budgets are not merely matters of arithmetic, but in a thousand ways go to
the root of prosperity of individuals, and the relation of classes, and the
strength of kingdoms. "
Nigeria inherited the budget idea from the British, operated it conventionally,
and it worked well for the country until Babangida came along, breached the
system and substituted it with an arrangement which allows for the operation of
'second but undisclosed budget'. The Okigbo Panel has found, and the government
figures reproduced in the Table to this paper clearly confirm, that substantial
amounts from the proceeds of the sale of crude oil and other official currency
receipts were, are still being, in uncaring defiance of the Constitution and of
all that is good, civilised and proper, collected and Spent outside the
Consolidated Revenue Fund. And thus incapacitated, the budget does not
positively influence the economic and social life of the Nigerian nation as
unadulterated budgets do in other countries. What there are now to show for the
budget are ever growing unemployment, reduced income and reduced life span of
the people, decaying infrastructure and increasing poverty in a situation in
which a few Nigerians capture the bulk of the nation's resources, leaving only
massive poverty and distress for the vast majority of the people. All these,
directly put in place by the criminal infractions of the budget system worked
hand in hand with the illegal debasement of the currency and the manipulation of
the exchange rate.
It is in light of these grim developments that there has been pressures from
within and outside Nigeria that this present regime should bring the leadership
of the Babangida's junta to book if only to serve as deterrent to others with
Babangida' s frame of mind. They obviously still abound in the corridors of
power as, despite the pretended crusade of this administration against
corruption, things have not improved. The reality of the situation, however, is
that if there is any one thing that the present regime just cannot do, it is
bringing Babangida and his accomplices to book.
The pressure on the current regime to do something about Babangida has come in
various forms. In publishing the Executive Summary of the Panel's Report, The
NEWS magazine, reflecting the position of the enlightened segment of Nigerians,
said:- "Okigbo's words (at the Report submission ceremony) were indicating
enough of how Babangida unilaterally blew the huge funds that belonged to the
state. And since then, there have been unceasing demands that he be brought to
book. But his successors have played deaf to the demands and have even refused
to release the entire report for the perusal of the general public. Obasanjo
particularly feels irritant anytime the issue is broached. At one parley with
media executives when he was accused of treating Babangida, who was the
principal agent in his return to the seat of power and was his major financier
in the 1999 election, as a sacred cow, Obasanjo said: "if you find IBB's
(money?) anywhere, come and tell me and I give you my word, that within 24
hours, we would have all the accounts frozen, otherwise no be Obasanjo born me.
In the same vein, a recent issue of THE GUARDIAN on Sunday reported that an
international fraud investigator and UN expert on assets recovery has said that
Nigeria is not doing enough to recover the money that was tooted from its
coffers by past government officials. According to the GUARDIAN, the expert:
"had also pin-pointed a particular former military ruler as having snatched away
from Nigeria's coffers about 25 billion dollars. But the unnamed military ruler,
is being protected by the current government which had refused offers from
experts to investigate the former military ruler."
Also, British
lawmakers recently asked Obasanjo in London what measures he had taken
concerning' allegations of financial impropriety and wrongdoings made against
Babangida' s administration. Hear Obasanjo:- "speculations and rumours on
allegations of wrongdoings abound in coffee shops and market places, not ~ one
of those allegations has been substantiated. No allegation has been proved or
formally presented to either the EFCC or the ICPC, on the former ruler".
The main finding by
Okigbo Panel is that "The proceeds of the sale of crude were not shown in the
revenue side nor the expenditures reflected in the expenditure side of the
budget." The Panel is not here expressing an opinion but stating hard fact based
on governmentís own published records.
The main recommendation of the Okigbo Panel is that the special accounts'
procedure should be discarded and that all government revenue and expenditure
should pass through the Federation Account of the budget. However, this
recommendation has been totally ignored by all the governments subsequent to
Babangida's, including the current regime.
These subsequent governments, including the current one, did or do not use the
term ' dedicated and special accounts' in their fiscal arrangements, but they
have continued, nevertheless, to apply the same underlying processes used by
Babangida to illegally expropriate massive foreign currency funds from the
national revenue receipts. So, today, the situation has not changed from what
the Okigbo Panel observed. The budget continues to be short changed, the
nation's official foreign exchange funds continue to be diverted and disposed of
in furtive accounts which are maintained outside, and not linked in any
conventional manner with, the mainstream government accounting and in respect of
which the questions of budgetary discipline,
