The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ministerial Scorecard

  • High flyers and the flops

    High flyers and the flops

    CABINET RATINGS

    BARELY hours to Christmas Day, President Goodluck Jonathan, speaking at the foundation laying of the Living Faith Foundation’s Bible College in Kaduna, had a message for Nigerians:

    “Let me assure all of you and indeed all Nigerians that 2013 will be better for us than 2012 in all aspects of the nation’s history. The new year shall be better for us in terms of job creation, wealth creation and improved security among others,” he said.

    In one breath the President was challenging Nigerians to dare to hope that the oft-repeated promises to deliver dividends of democracy would be actualised in the New Year. At same time, his comments appeared to be an admission that his large cabinet had fallen short in meeting the expectations of longsuffering Nigerians in every area from security, to job creation to provision of electricity and basic infrastructure like roads.

    In a moment of defensiveness in the face on unrelenting criticism earlier this year, Jonathan vowed that he and his cabinet would no longer rely on the assessment of the media, but rate the government’s performance by themselves.

    In the real world that hardly makes sense because the entire cabinet put together cannot muster more than 50 votes, whereas the opinions of millions of voting Nigerians who don’t sit in the cabinet room would ultimate determine whether the administration has done well enough to be given another chance.

    This Sunday we begin an assessment of the Jonathan cabinet by allowing the people and experts in relevant areas to rate ministers on a scale of A to F.

    The concluding part runs next Sunday.

  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance

    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance

    MANY Nigerians have continued to lament the parlous state of the economy, with majority heaping the blame on those saddled with the management of the economy, especially in the last one year.

    To these critics, 2012 definitely left the economy in a worse quandary in the annals of the country.

    Specifically, they cite the thorny oil subsidy scam, in which high profile Nigerians were implicated just as the much touted double digit growth being mouthed by government apologists didn’t cut ice with the critics.

    Firing the first salvo, Dr. Baba Omojola, an economic analyst and World Bank consultant, is not persuaded that the country’s managers did a good job in the last 12 months.

    As far as he is concerned, the Finance minister’s performance is nothing to write home about.

    “In the last seven years, the Federal Government has borrowed $4.4 billion from the World Bank, yet only $1.8 billion has been expended. The balance, which is $2.6billion, has not been expended, rather hoarded, or spent secretly on top of service charge accumulating,” he stressed.

    He further argued that the Federal Government’s earlier plans to build the country’s external reserves to $50bn by December 31, 2012 have failed as the year ended with $44.26bn as its reserve.

    According to the Central Bank of Nigeria report, the reserves closed $6bn below the year’s $50bn target, he noted.

    The country’s reserves rose from $32.92bn in 2011 representing a 34 per cent increase in 2012 with a difference of $11.34bn; even with the increase, it could not meet the goals set by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala for 2012.

    “The crisis of unemployment has gone full blast with over 75 % rate as at 2012. So things have gone pretty bad for the country. The growth was 5.8 %, compared to 2011 which was 7.8%. There is need to build the country’s industrial and production capacity. That is the only way to go.”

    The duo of Dr. Chris Onalo, Registrar/Chief Executive, Institute of Credit Administration, (ICA), and Mr. Joshua Oderinde, former chairman, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Lagos State chapter, hold the view and very strongly that the ministry under Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala measured up considerably.

    To Onalo, Okonjo-Iweala deserves kudos for as he said, “She helped to manage the economy in the face of undue interference from the executive. But for her fiscal discipline and stern warning to the government on the spending behaviour, things would have really gotten out of hand for the economy.

    “I think the Finance Ministry showed the way for other ministries. As such, I would rate her high above all other ministries. As a credit rating institute, I would gladly score the ministry a triple A for its sterling performance.”

    Echoing similar sentiments, Oderinde, said: “Based on the evidence available to me, I think they have really done very well, especially in the way they have been able to manage the nation’s finances thus far.”

    In his own assertion, he would gladly score the ministry a B+ because as he observed, “They have really done well because it is not easy to manage the economy. With the kind of info at my disposal, I can say in all honesty that the economic team has done their best under the circumstances they find themselves…The way forward is that everybody should rally round the economic team. Everybody should do his beat and we all should work towards the country’s progress.”

    RATING: B —

  • Ita Okon Bassey Ewa, Minister of Science and Technology

    Ita Okon Bassey Ewa, Minister of Science and Technology

    Science, technology and innovation are critical to the development of any nation. The recognition of the importance of science and technology in national development efforts propelled the Federal Government to create the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1976.

    The mandate of the ministry is to advise the government on policy issues as they relate to scientific and technological developments, while coordinating and promoting research and development activities. President Goodluck Jonathan, aware of the value of science and technology in national development efforts, made it a campaign issue. During his campaigns leading up to the 2011 general elections, he pledged that he would place tangible emphasis on science and technology in the next four years.

    However, a major question in the minds of many observers is: Has the presidential pledge resulted in achievements in the field of science and technology? However, Prof. Ita Ewa, the Minister of Science and Technology, who spoke at the Ministerial Platform to mark the first anniversary of the Jonathan-administration, recounted his ministry’s achievements in the last one year. He listed the achievements as including the launch of two low earth observation satellites – NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, as well as a communication satellite-NigComSat-1R. He also said that the rocketry was successfully launched in Epe, Lagos. “The communication satellite will among other things save Nigeria more than two billion dollars annually and increase the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

    “It will also reduce tariff on GSM phone services and satellite television broadcasting services, while linking the rural areas with telephone services and promoting e-commerce and e-government,’’ he said.

    Ewa said that the ministry was also developing its human capacity in space technology, recalling that Nigerian experts made appreciable input in the design and manufacture of NigeriaSat-X. The minister expatiated that the satellite was built by 26 Nigerian engineers and scientists under the supervision of experts at Surrey in UK, adding that over 100 Nigerian experts had also received very high-level training in space technology.

    He particularly noted that the achievements of the Jonathan-administration’s in space technology had earned Nigeria the membership of the International Disaster Monitoring Constellation. The minister, who discussed Nigeria’s space programme from now to 2028 when the country was expected to launch a made-in-Nigeria satellite into space, said that Nigeria would launch three satellites and send astronauts to space by 2015. In the area of solar technology, Ewa has always told Nigerians that the ministry had established a 7.5-megawatt Solar Panel Assembling Plant at Karshi, a satellite town in the FCT, adding that the plant was now operational. The Minister has been saying that most of the energy challenges facing the country would be solved if all the energy sources were fully utilised.

    Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, Managing Director of NIGCOMSAT Ltd., who testified to achievements and development, said that the satellite’s launch would boost Nigeria’s Global Competitive Index and GDI ranking. He stressed that it would also enhance telecommunications, broadcasting, broadband internet and other space-based services, while empowering Nigeria to achieve the goals of Vision 20:2020. Ahmed-Rufai noted that many countries had already indicated interest in procuring bandwidth from the satellite, which covered 40 African countries, six European countries and some Asian countries.

    Despite all these the ministry has done a little to harness all these promises. The National Assembly has also been battling the minister over what lawmakers describe as inability of the minister to defend the ministry’s budget. It has been a war between both parties. This has affected major progress in the ministry.

    The claims of the minister notwithstanding, many experts say not much has been done in the sector. They point out that the Ministry of Science and Technology has always lacked the ability to push through the final result in whatever research it has. No country, they note, can progress if her end-product is not pushed to the world. They said the minister needs to do more work and seek further collaboration if reasonable results are to be recorded.

    RATING: D

  • Edem Duke, Minister of Culture and Tourism

    Edem Duke, Minister of Culture and Tourism

    To give a comprehensive overview of the tourism and culture sector in the outgoing year and how much of core mandates have been achieved can only be done through the 10 parastatals under the ministry namely: National Council for Museums and Monuments, (NCMM); National Orientation Agency, (NOA); National Institute for Culture Orientation, (NICO); Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, (NTDC); National Gallery of Art, (NGA); National Troupe of Nigeria, (NTN); National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Development Studies, (NIHTDS); Institute of Archaeology and Museum Studies; National Theatre and Centre for Black African Arts and Civilisation, (CBAAC).

    When the Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, undertook his inaugural tour of agencies and parastatals within his purview in Lagos about two years ago, many stakeholders in the sector thgought the messiah had finally come. Looking back though, that optimism may have been misplaced. This is because the same issues that have bedevilled the ministry over the years have continued to rear their heads. But Duke is unequivocal about his determination to be a change agent and spearhead the repositioning of culture for national development.

    In one of his interviews with The Nation he said: “The task is daunting. However, I cannot jump ship; I’m in this for the whole hog. The good thing is that I have the opportunity to make a case for the sector before the Federal Executive Council, FEC, and will continue to do so.”

    Issues which readily come to mind are those of funding (the right budget for the ministry which received N2.2bn allocation in the 2012 budget), getting corporate Nigeria involved in the funding of culture, as well as putting in place the National Endowment for the Arts and National Culture Policy, among others.

    Duke, has never shied away from shouting about the injustice of the small budget at the disposal of the culture ministry compared with the other ministries that get huge allocation. He has even gone as far as calling on corporations to weigh in for culture. But it does not seem like any of the heavyweight companies have taken the call seriously yet. Perhaps this is as a result of the failure to connect rhetoric with action in terms of the required follow-up spadework.

    Duke stated further that because of the competing demands on limited resources of government, adequate financial appropriation had not benefited the National Theatre in the last one decade. Although stakeholders in the sector have queried the unilateral decision taken by the House of Assembly much earlier in the year during review of the 2012 budgetary provision for the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Duke was quick to point out that the National Theatre would remain on the front burner of its rehabilitation projects.

    Earlier in November, the House Committee on Culture and Tourism took the ministry to task for “the implementation of the capital component of the 2012 budget”.

    Holding Duke answerable for any lapses, Chairman of the panel, Ben Nwankwo, who spoke at the 2013 budget defence meeting with the ministry said that if the budget was implemented accordingly, it would generate employment for the country’s unemployed youth population.

    “We are not generally satisfied with the implementation of the capital budget”, the lawmaker noted, adding that implementation of the budget was not a matter of choice but to be guided by law”, Nwankwo stated.

    In his defence, Duke explained that 582 million naira was allocated to the ministry in 2012 for capital project, but that between January and November, only the sum of N268m was released to the ministry, representing 46 percent leaving a balance of N313m.

    Duke said that out of the N588m allocated to the ministry for overhead, N499m was released to the ministry between January and October, representing 84 percent, adding that the level of performance of capital budget was 98 percent.

    There is also the vexing matter of a lack of a National Endowment for the Arts, which is no doubt a result of the failure to implement the National Culture Policy drafted during Prince Tony Momoh’s tenure as culture minister in the 80s. As a matter of fact, Momoh in a recent interview said Nigeria loses billions for this anomaly– billions the sector desperately needs, which is why the vicious circle continues.

    Stakeholders in the tourism sector and Nigeria citizens started this year with high hopes thinking the Millennium Tourism Tower project, started about four years ago, will be completed. Already, the year has slipped away with no significant milestones for the Tower project until recently when the FG announced that the project, estimated to gulp N69.3bn, will be completed in 2014.

    2012 is best described as a year of spirited efforts by most of the culture and tourism parastatals but the level of activity is yet to resonate to appreciable dividends for the country or its citizens. One paramount reason for this is, as mentioned earlier, is the low priority the sector seems to be given by government and corporate Nigeria where it matters most funding. The onus then rests on the sector and its public officers to articulate their goals cohesively, put aside internal wrangling, rivalry and petty divisive tendencies which has seen some parastatals operating almost independent of the supervisory ministry.

    RATING: C

  • Hadiza Mailafia, Minister of Environment

    Hadiza Mailafia, Minister of Environment

    Minister of Environment, Hadiza Mailafia, took office, brimming with determination to promote a healthier environment and combat environmental challenges. She pledged to revive the ministry and ensure less paper work.

    To achieve her objectives she signed a performance agreement with key stakeholders of the ministry including the contractors.

    By October 2012, she had flagged-off the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel, a project covering 11 northern states as part of the strategy to check desertification and drought south of the Sahara. Developed by the African Union (AU) the project is targeted at reforesting 15 million hectares along a 15 km-wide, 7,775 km-long belt, from Senegal to Djibouti.

    On completion, it is expected to minimize land degradation; rehabilitate degraded areas, promote sustainable agriculture and water management practices; to ensure optimal use of land resources.

    Her biggest challenge in office is undoubtedly the recent flooding in many states of the country in which dozens of people were killed, hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes and farmlands and livestock washed away. The nationwide flood disaster was something that clearly caught the government unprepared.

    To stave off a repeat, the ministry has a lot of work to do to minimize extensive damage caused by flooding. These include delineation of the flood prone zones with a view to facilitating alternative settlements for people living close to rivers, massive public enlightenment on proper waste disposal, the negative effects of deforestation and of environmental pollution.

    Besides, the minister has the United Nations Environment Report (UNEP) report on Ogoniland to implement, even though that part of the country is one of the many areas in dire need of government attention to address the effects of oil exploration on the water in such places, where the major traditional occupations are fishing and farming.

    It is not clear yet how she intends to tackle the problems of poor sanitation/ drainage system and inadequate water supply after publicly admitting that: “over 15 per cent of Nigerians don’t have access to toilet facilities, therefore making them urinate and defecate by the walls of buildings and on streets respectively. Fifty-five per cent of Nigerians make use of pit latrines and only 30 per cent have good toilet facilities.”

    The National Assembly rated the ministry low in terms of budget performance on account of its inability to complete capital projects.

     

    RATING: E

  • Bala Mohammed, Minister for FCT

    Bala Mohammed, Minister for FCT

    Although the Federal Capital Territory Administration is making giant strides in infrastuctural development in the capital city, residents have not really felt the impact of Governance due to the heavy migration of people into the city.

    The Minister, Bala Mohammed in the outgoing year, 2012 signed a Memoradum of Understanding (MoU) with 13 land-swap investors to immediately commence the opening up of 8 new districts in the Federal Capital City, Abuja to provide more houses and crash the high cost of rent in the city.

    He also flagged off infrastructural development in three districts of the Federal Capital City, Abuja. In order to increase the speed of development in the FCT, five districts namely Katampe, Mabushi, Gwarinpa I and Kado were approved for procurement using PPP by the Federal Executive Council.

    Also,as part of the take off of FCT Social Housing Scheme,the FCTA gave approval for the allocation of 50 hectares of land to the American based company-American Building Systems International to build the first phase of the Abuja Social Housing Initiative as well as gave approval of 1,000 hectares of land to be set aside for the Federal Mortgage Bank to build decent and affordable houses for low income earners in the city.

    As part of measures towards laying to rest all encumbrances that had hitherto plagued the Multi-Billion-Naira Abuja Light Rail Project, the FCT Administration signed an MoU agreement of the $500M loan that will be provided by the Chinese Nexim Bank to continue with the Light Rail project to ease transportation in the city.

    Residents also lauded the achievement recorded in the transport sector with progress of works on some major Abuja Roads to address the transportation bottlenecks being experienced along major entrance points into the Federal capital city and these include the drastic improvement on the on-going rehabilitation and expansion of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Airport Road) and Murtala Mohammed (Kubwa Road) Expressways respectively which have reached completion stages; while the Multi-Billion-Naira Guzape-Sunrise By-Pass was also opened to traffic thereby depleting the traffic congestion at AYA junction.

    The commissioning of this by-pass and establishment of mobile courts to sit at designated areas in the city, have improved seamless vehicular movement and reduced the traffic bottlenecks hitherto experienced around Mogadishu Cantonment and the entire Karu/Nyanya axis.

    On foreign investment, the FCT Administration realized over 6.6 billion US Dollars (about N1.086Trillion) from direct foreign investment into the Federal Capital Territory, including the sum of 2.6 billion US Dollars foreign direct investment for the Abuja Town Centre Development and over 1 billion US Dollars now being expended on the on-going construction work at the Abuja World Trade Centre.

    Although the Administration can boast to have recorded some level of progress, the residents are still yearning for more. A civil servant, James Oluyole said the FCTA should devote more funds to the completion of the Lower Usuma Dam Water project so as to ease the problem of water supply in the city.

    Another resident, Hope Dickson said the administration needs to construct more markets in order to check the springing up of small market in every corners of the city.

    National President of Artisans in the building Industry in the FCT, Mr. Jimmy Oshinubi, who called for the immediate resettlement of Minanuel Estate subscribers and compensation for the estate developer whose 500 houses were recently demolished called on the FCT Minister to restore confidence in his administration by restructuring land administration in FCT.

    RATING: C

  • Omobola Johnson, Minister of Communication Technology

    Omobola Johnson, Minister of Communication Technology

    Since the creation of the Omobola Johnson-led Ministry of Communication Technology in 2011, there has been some progress in bridging the digital divide between Nigeria and the rest of the world. Still there are complaints aplenty.

    The poor quality of telecom services has been a consistent pain for both the subscribers and regulators says Ogochukuwu Ifegbuna, a systems database analyst, who believes this could have been curtailed if the ministry had lived up to its responsibilities.

    “I do not see any improvement in the ICT sector because many of the issues we faced in 2011 are still here. For example, I still do not understand why the quality of network should be as low as it is. “

    “Nigeria currently has one of the largest bandwidths in the world due to the fibre-optic channels we have running here, and yet to access good 3D network is a problem. This is something the ministry should have addressed and they still have not. I am scoring them a ‘D’ just for leniency sake,” he stated.

    Taking a similar position, Adebayo Ogunseye, Chief Executive Officer of DodgeComm Ltd, an information technology service provider says: “The issues we have had to deal with last year are basically the same ones we have been battling with for about a decade.

    “Since the initial push in the early 2000s when the big telecom and IT giants rushed in to take advantage of the large market our population offers, we are yet to see any other major milestone. Instead, what we have are situations where foreign investors are frustrated out of the country due to the ridiculous amount of corruption shoved down their throat by government officials.”

    When asked to rate the ministry’s performance, he said, “If I am to assess them, I will give them an E.”

    Although there is some displeasure at the slow pace of achievement in the ICT sector, with the surge in the use of social media and technological gadgets, the sector took some major strides in 2012.

    Juliet Ibeh, a CISCO certified database analyst says liberalisation of the telecoms sector, as well as improvement in rural telephony, are commendable efforts backed by the ministry.

    “I am pretty sure almost all the villages and remote towns in the country have some access to GSM service. They might not be able to get full internet service but at least they can make phone-calls. That is something we could not do about 10 years ago.

    “Plus we should not forget the national registration exercise that they tried to do with the telecoms companies. If the ministry had not put its foot down and insisted that it should be done, many of them would have run away from it because of the additional cost.

    “And all the IT companies have had to sit up because it has become an open field where once you have the expertise, you have a fair chance to deliver on a job. So this makes competition stiff and ensures that customers get value for their money. This is why I am giving them a ‘C’ because I know they can do better,” she said.

    Highlighting some of the recurring challenges operators face, Ms. Funke Opeke, Chief Executive Officer of Main One Cable, Africa’s largest fibre-optic laying company, at a recent meeting fingered poor infrastructure as a leading cause.

    She said, “It is not that we do not have the capacity to generate enough but there are infrastructural challenges which need to be addressed for optimal usage of the already available resources.”

    In the ministry’s defence, Johnson says the sector is improving but still has a long way to go.

    “The software industry is fledgling and fragmented. There are a number of young people who have developed software for the local and international market but it is not well co-ordinated. So first of all we are trying to bring standards in terms of software development.”

    To flag this off, the minister at the start of 2012 announced the launch of IT incubation centres for small and medium scale entrepreneurs. The centres, she claimed, would begin to teach these entrepreneurs ways to commercialize their products by the end of the year 2012. A software training programme for five hundred youths was organised and not much else has been heard about that.

    RATING: C