It’s just as well that the Senate shoved aside the proposed plan by the federal government to borrow about $30 billion. It is hoped that a lot more diligence would be brought to bear on the document. And of course, it is expected that a little more sensitivity and political wisdom is applied in allotting the projects especially as concerns the Southeast zone.
The president’s expenditure plan to the National Assembly seems patently shoddy and ad-hoc in nature that the only good about it may well be the methodical exclusion and sidetracking of the Southeast. Here are the big ticket projects: Mambila power plant (Northeast); Coastal Railway at the Calabar- Ph deep sea segment (Southsouth); modernisation of Lagos-Ibadan-Kaduna-Kano railway (Southwest-Northcentral-Northwest) and Abuja mass rail transit phase 2. Not even a tangential mention of the Southeast; it surely cannot be an accident.
This attitude; let’s call it malevolent inequity will eternally set back any country and indeed damage its soul. We will return to it.
When the federal government announced its intention to borrow such a huge chunk of dollars from multilateral institutions recently, not a few Nigerians were apprehensive. A whirlwind of debate was immediately set off with the house divided down the middle.
And when the breakdown of projects was released later, the dialogue only gained momentum. One was not moved anyhow by the loan quest because one never thought that Nigeria’s problem was a dire shortage of cash more than a paucity of ideas and the energy to get results in quick time.
One had said it here several times that even though we have about 50 per cent revenue shortage today, that does not make Nigeria broke and prostrate to the point of frantically scrounging for cash. The refrain from the managers of our economy is: ‘spend ourselves out of recession’. This is the same antidote deployed by the US and her allies way back in 2008 when the West was hit by a violent recession.
But we ask, though the symptoms may be the same and the problem may bear the same appellation, the prognosis may well differ.
The US, Japan and some developed countries of the West pumped trillions of dollars in their economies to reflate it all right, but it is basic knowledge that these are well-developed service and production economies that can absorb trillions of dollars in their massive shop-floors and expand their exporting frontiers.
But Nigeria’s economy is still about 90 per cent import dependent. Again, when you borrow billions of dollars in a state of fiscal indiscipline, the chunk of it would be vired to workers’ emoluments and overheads, importing petroleum products, staple foods, home appliances, service parts for presidential jets, travel allowances, school fees and foreign medical bills.
Yes, we have outlined projects to be embarked upon, but even this will involve huge importation of materials and machinery. Worse is that most of the so-called projects are not likely to be realised in five years and perhaps another five years to begin to yield revenues if any. Result: we will remain in recession for a long time yet and probably sink deeper because we are not doing the right things.
Again, I say Nigeria is not broke and liquidity-starved but that government is pursuing the wrong policies. We only need to move aggressively from an import-dependent country to a service-driven and highly productive country.
Let us start from the very simple and the most basic. President Muhammadu Buhari in one of his pre-inauguration statements promised to revive Nigeria’s national airline upon resumption. But few months in office the story changed to something like flag carrier not our priority, meaning that there was no think-through before the initial pronouncement. More irksome, who worked out the economics of it to determine that it wasn’t priority or cost effective?
Today, government is bugged down with and must cough out over $600 million foreign currency flight ticket revenues of foreign airlines. If Air Nigeria was flying, this amount will surely be far less plus attendant jobs and technology transfer opportunities. Over 30 African countries have carriers including minnows like Rwanda, Botswana, Mauritania, Gambia, Namibia and Burkina Faso. Among Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Maroc and South African Airlines, the federal government probably has about $200 million unremitted ticket earnings.
Air Nigeria could have got half of that. And the good news is that it would have cost the country next to nothing to set up if she knows what to do. The African countries running airlines don’t have anything over Nigeria. Now instead of Nigeria becoming a hub for air transport in Africa and taking the best advantage of the sector, we are today stuck with how to pay out huge ticket dollars to other countries’ airlines.
This is just one example. One can list 12 other strategic interventions this government would have consummated quickly since May 29, 2015, which would in concert, have kept this economy stable if not buoyant. But what we have had and still have are wasted opportunities, inertia and a general lack of a grand vision.
Are we serious about stopping the massive importation of petroleum products? We could have achieved 50% of that six months ago. Are we focusing the proper attention on agriculture with a target to stop food imports? Are we methodically revamping cocoa, rubber, palm oil and cotton industries? What are the target dates?
Which serious government borrows money to build power plants, railway lines and roads these days when international concession funds are out there and can be accessed? Nearly all these projects listed for the loan can be built and operated by foreign consortia with private capital. Did anyone around here ever considered international open bids for these projects?
Finally, on the small matter of excluding the Southeast of Nigeria from this loan bazaar, it must be depressing, if not agonising to people from this part of Nigeria that their zone do not deserve any major project in a loan they would partake equally in paying back. What a pity? What can we say than to conclude that it only reinforces the cast-in-stone mindset we know too well of PMB towards Ndigbo. And as we have said here several times, this most un-presidential behaviour would hound his presidency all the way to the end and impugn his persona even long after his time.
Callousness at Min. of Defence
With the recent news of mind-boggling malfeasance in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and what we are still hearing, shall we say that callousness has met corruption? We hear that in Command Schools which are under the Military Education Corps, more than half of their teachers are temporary workers who are paid only about N20, 000 to N30, 000 monthly.
We also hear that most of these teachers have been in this temporary position for between 10 to 20 years without conversion. Again, we hear most of these teachers are master’s degree holders.
And how about this? In the past six years, there has not been promotion for teachers in the directorate cadre of Military Education Corps. But this may not be strange except that each year MoD invites hundreds of qualified candidates to Abuja for a four-day phoney promotion interview. And every year for the past six years, the story has been the same: NO VACANCY.
And the question is: if there was no vacancy to promote to the directorate cadre, why does MoD invite teachers to Abuja from all over the country without one kobo of estacode? In whose interest is this annual jamboree and who is getting rich by it?
If the Ministry of Education (MoE) conducts the same annual interview and promotes every year; if MoE pays candidates estacode for the Abuja trips why is it different with MoD? Are military schools’ teachers being treated like slaves because they are civilians? Will MoD treat uniformed men this way? Will they withhold military officers’ promotions for six years?
Apparently, MoD is still not completely clean of corruption yet; it seems to require a further clean sweep.
