As the National Economic Council begins a two-day retreat in
Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari has proposed ways of reinvigorating Nigeria’s
wobbling economy.
The NEC is chaired by the Vice President, Yemi
Osinbajo, and its membership includes the 36 State governors and some Ministers
and heads of relevant government agencies.
The President, who delivered the keynote address
at the opening of the retreat, said there is unanimity of opinion in Nigeria
that the nation’s economy is in bad shape. The president said based on the
generality of opinion of Nigerians at his disposal, four key areas, namely
agriculture, power, manufacturing and housing requires urgent attention to
revive the economy.
He, however, said he was making no suggestions
on “Education, Science and Technology pointedly because these related subjects
require a whole retreat by themselves”. He subsequently made some proposals to NEC to
consider as the body seeks solution for the country’s ailing economy.
On Agriculture, Mr. Buhari said both peasant
and mechanized farmers in Nigeria agree that food production and
self-sufficiency require urgent government action.
“For too long government policies on agriculture have been
half-hearted, suffering from inconsistencies and discontinuities,”he said.
The president said what was most worrying to
Nigerians with regards to Agriculture was the rising food prices, lack of visible
impact of government presence on the sector, lack of agricultural inputs at
affordable prices, high cost of fertilizers, pesticide as well as labour.
He also said extension services were virtually
absent in several States.
He identified the importation of subsidized
food products such as rice and poultry and the wastage of locally grown foods,
notably fruit and vegetables, which go bad due to lack of even moderate scale
agro-processing factories and lack of feeder roads.
“These problems I have enumerated are by no
means exhaustive and some of the solutions I am putting forward are not
necessarily the final word on our agricultural reform objectives,” he said.
The president thereafter, said the Nigerian
government needed to carry the public along in the new initiatives being
introduced. He said the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with
the States, should convene early meetings of relevant individuals and bodies to
identify issues with a view to addressing them.
He also said there was need to “inform the
public in all print and electronic media on government efforts to increase
local food production to dampen escalating food prices”.
He also suggested that banks should be leaned
upon to substantially increase their lending to the agricultural sector.
“(The) Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should
bear part of the risk of such loans as a matter of national policy,” he said. Mr.
Buhari advised State governments to increase their financial support through
community groups. He said the appropriate approach should be through leaders of
community groups such as farmers’ cooperatives.
He also advised the governors to provide
feeder roads to enable more effective evacuation of produce to markets and
processing factories. “When I was a schoolboy in the 1950’s the country
produced one million tons of groundnuts in two successive years,” Mr. Buhari
recalled. “The country’s main foreign exchange earners were groundnut, cotton,
cocoa, palm kernel, rubber and all agro/forest resources.
“Regional Banks and Development Corporations
in all the three regions were financed from farm surpluses. In other words, our
capital formation rode on the backs of our farmers. Why was farming so
successful 60 years ago?”
The president said that was possible because there were small
scale credits to farmers, while inputs such as fertilizers and herbicides were
readily available, complemented by adequate extension services.
“Now we have better tools, better agricultural
science and technology, and greater ability to process. With determination we
can succeed,” he said.
With regards to the Power sector, Mr. Buhari
admitted that “Nigerians’ favourite talking point and butt of jokes is the
power situation in our country. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is no longer a
laughing matter. We must and by the grace of God we will put things right.
“In the three years left for this
administration we have given ourselves the target of ten thousand megawatts
distributable power. In 2016 alone, we intend to add two tgousand megawatts to
the national grid,” he said.
The president said the privatisation of the
power sector was yet to translate into improvement in the quality of service.
He identified common public complaints on the
sector to include constant power cuts, high electricity bills despite the cuts,
low supply of gas to power plants due to vandalization by ‘terrorists’,
obsolete power distribution equipment and low voltage he said could not
industrial machinery.
Mr. Buhari said some of the problems had
defied successive governments, adding however that his administration “must and
will, insha Allah, put a stop to power shortages.” He lamented that Nigeria was
currently facing a dilemma of privatization which pitches public interest
against profit motive.
“Having started, we must complete the process.
But National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the regulatory
authority, has a vital job to ensure consumers get value for money and over-all
public interest is safe-guarded,” he said.
He also said the government would fast-track
the completion of pipelines from Gas points to power stations and provide more
security to protect gas and oil pipelines. He added that “Power companies
should be encouraged to replace obsolete equipment and improve the quality of
service and technicians”.
In the manufacturing sector, Mr. Buhari said
many manufacturing industries in the country were groaning and frustrated
because of lack of foreign exchange to import raw materials and spare parts.
“Painful though this is, I believe it is a
temporary phase which we shall try to overcome but there are deeper, more
structural problems bedeviling local industries which this Retreat should
identify short and long-term answers to,” he said.
He said NEC should look at the problems of
inadequate infrastructure such as power, roads and security; high cost of
borrowing money and lack of long term funding. President Buhari said the
Nigerian Capital Market had not completely recover from the 2008 worldwide
crisis.
He said Banks’ funding sources remained
short-term in nature due to sources of the liabilities. The president also said
there was need to protect workers from exploitation, adding that unions must
cooperate with entrepreneurs to substantially improve productivity and quality
of products if the nation is to move forward.
The president recommended that the
infrastructure Development Fund should be fast-tracked to unlock resources so
that infrastructural deficiencies could be addressed. He also said there should
be more fiscal incentives for Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, which prove
themselves capable of manufacturing quality products good enough for export.
“(The) Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should
create more incentives and ease credit terms for lending to manufacturers,” he
said. He also said a fresh campaign to patronize Made-in-Nigeria goods should
be launched. He suggested all uniforms in government-sponsored institutions
should be sourced from local factories.
As for the Housing sector, President Buhari
said some estimates put Nigeria’s housing deficit at about sixteen million
units. “In our successful campaign to win the general elections last year our
party, the APC, promised to build a million housing units a year,” he said.
Mr. Buhari however, said that campaign promise
might turn out a tall order unless government builds two hundred and fifty
thousand units and the 22 APC States together manage another two hundred and
fifty thousand units.
He also urged “foreign investors together with
local domiciled big construction companies to enter into commercial housing
building to pick up the rest”. The President said the most frequent public
concerns brought to his attention as regards the housing sector include severe
shortage of housing, high rents and unaffordable prices for prospective buyers
especially middle and low-income earners.
“In addition, red tape, corruption and plain
public service inefficiency lead to long delays in obtaining ownership of title
documents. “Again, there are no long term funding sources for mortgage
purposes.
“These hurdles are by no means easy to scale,
but we must find solutions to the housing deficit. This Retreat might start by
looking at the laws,” he said. President Buhari said the relevant laws as
regards Housing should be reviewed to make the process of acquiring statutory
right of occupancy shorter, less cumbersome and less costly.
He said Court procedures for mortgages cases should make enforcement more efficient.
He said Court procedures for mortgages cases should make enforcement more efficient.
President Buhari also spoke about the health
sector, lamenting that “Nigerians travel abroad, spending an estimated One
Billion US Dollars annually to get medical treatment.”
“Despite huge oil revenues the nation’s health
sector remains undeveloped,” he said
Mr. Buhari said in attacking the challenges in
the health sector the government could start with more funding for health
centres to improve service delivery. He also said the World Bank and World
Health Organization, WHO, could be persuaded to increase their assistance.
He also advocated the strengthening of public
health propaganda in primary prevention areas to intimate Nigerians in areas
such as environmental sanitation, need to stop smoking, better dieting and
exercising.
He also advocated a secondary prevention
inputs such as the screening and early diagnosis of diseases.
He challenged NAFDAC to intensify efforts at
reducing or stopping circulation of fake drugs in Nigeria, while the Ministry
of Health should work closely with the Nigerian Medical Association to ensure
that unqualified people are not allowed to practice..___
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