…Buhari will continue after 2019, says Zainab Ahmed
The Federal Government is currently working on a new policy on population to determine how many children a woman will be allowed to have.
This new policy initiative if operational, will help government check Nigeria’s ballooning population.
Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed made this disclosure on Tuesday during a plenary session on “Sustainable Economic Opportunities: Ending the Vicious Cycle at the 2018 Nigerian Economic Summit.
She said government was presently consulting with both religious and traditional leaders across the country on the issue after which a policy will be formulated on the matter.
Zainab Ahmed expressed regret at the controversy generated over the imposition of fine on telecommunications company, MTN on repatriation of profits.
Zainab Ahmed who described the incident as “ very damaging for us” blamed the telecommunications company for the episode because of its refusal to provide required information to settle the dispute.
She noted that “MTN failed to cooperate with CBN auditors who were mandated to resolve the matter.”
Giving the fears generated by the fine among investors, Zainab maintained that “there has not been any occasion in recent times when investors had difficulty in repatriating their capital.”
With regards to other economic parameters, the finance minister admitted that government has not doing enough in the areas of job creation and social investment programmes but pleaded that government officials needed the input of private sector operators on how to develop the economy.
According to the finance minister, “we must find out ways to engage our youths to be active, ensure that transportation is effective, available and reasonably priced”. She said there was need to support the informal sector of the economy so as to absorb the current 40 percent unemployment figure.
Zainab Ahmed also assured that the 2019 general elections will not hamper government’s Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) target of 2020, saying the Federal Government is committed and focused on delivering on the set goals.
She said the federal government is aware of the sense of urgency and the need for consistency for a sustainable growth of the economy and that Mr President has asked them to keep their eyes on the ball and focus on delivering on the ERGP.
According to the Minister, “For the past four weeks or so, we have been talking to investors and we are sending out a message that the president has asked some of us to just keep our eyes on the ball to focus on delivering on ERGP and the goals that are set.
“He has said we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the elections. So there are few of us that are simply working towards 2020 which is the life of the ERGP, and also very soon we are going to start developing.”
She added that elections are going to cause some distractions but as long as we keep focus in what we have planned, we would be fine. We are sure that the President will pass through the 2019 elections and continue as president, so our focus is on 2020 not 2019.
Speaking further on a sustained economic opportunities, the minister noted the country will harness the potentials of its large energetic youth population and their entrepreneurial zest.
She said government is also partnering different sectors and helping small scale businesses access to finance, creating the enabling environment, improving on infrastructure and make cost of transportation reasonable low.
She said, “We have a situation where there is an economy that is beginning to go back to the path of growth but it is also exposed to a lot of fragility.
“Any external shocks will affect us significantly. We also have this growing unemployment that is really a threat to all of us. We have on the other hand a very large population of youths that are very active and very entrepreneurial. So that in itself is a very huge advantage to me because I think even though, we are a country that is resourceful but most important resources that we have is actually our people and our energetic youths.
“And what we have to do as policy makers first is to find out how we can engage the youths to be productive in the society to add their contribution and also to help them into deciding what thing they should be involved in.
“The youths for me hold the key to the future to be able to raise Nigeria from where it is so that we can become another good example that maybe in the years to come we can be sited along side Indonesia, China and Malaysia.
“What we are doing now is significant but it’s not enough, we need to do a lot more. The people that are in government don’t have all of the expertise that is required to really pull our country and make that quantum stride which is required.
“So we have to engage more with the private sector. We are doing a lot of engagement, but we have to enable small scale businesses to access finance, we have to provide basic infrastructure, especially power for businesses whether it’s a barber or hair saloon or a small restaurant or cafeteria or a tailor to be able to do their business without having to run their generator or ramping up their cost.
“So I see this economic summit as an opportunity for us to lead a frank discussions on the things that we are doing right, but how we can round them up so that it is felt. The national social investment programme is well designed but we today covered maybe 9.2 million people including about 8.7 million children that are being fed. But if you take out the children that are being fed, the number of people that have been enabled to be employed is still under 2 million, so that is still not enough.
“We hope to be able to expand that programme and there is no reason why we cannot be partnering with private sector even in running this social investment programme. We have found out that there is a need to enable as many people as possible to be involved in the financial sector just helping people to open bank accounts. So whatever it is that they need passes through the financial system. Then it enables them to save and then it enables them to access more finance.”
She gave the assurance that governance would not stop because of the coming elections as “Mr. President has mandated some of us to concentrate on the economy and shun election matters.
Another member of the panel, Dr. Doyin Salami of the Lagos Business School declared that Nigeria must reverse the massive movement into poverty. He noted that of the 1.5 million candidates that yearly seek admission into universities, only 350,000 are admitted while less than half of them eventually get employment after graduation.
He identified lack of capacity as a major problem of government saying “it is erroneous to assume that government always knows there is a problem. “When they know there is a problem, they may not have the wherewithal to solve it. We must deal with the problem of capacity in government.”
Salami identified abysmally low wages as major contributor to low level corruption in the country decrying that there was upward concentration of income declaring “ we need to go back and review our reward and remuneration system”.
Also contributing, Director, School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, United States of America, Prof. Peter Lewis observed that that the presence of corruption in the system was not an excuse for poverty and underdevelopment.
He however, insisted that the reward system must be attractive. “There must be po!icy consistency to give assurance to investors.”
He said there were enough talents and good policies in Nigeria but identified inconsistencies, lack of collective action, coordination and government inability to galvanise citizens as major reasons for lack of development in Nigeria.
In his view, the executive arm of government must show a sense of urgency and that it is important to have a stable and capable economic management team in place.
