The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Vision 20:2020

  • Experts list obstacles to achieving Vision 20:2020

    FOR the nation to achieve its dream of joining the league of the 20 largest economies by 2020, it must among others double its productivity, embrace high quality workforce and overcome epileptic power supply.

    Public service experts, academics and top civil servants said this yesterday at a research seminar organised by the Nigerian Institute of Economic and Social Research (NISER), Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

    They listed over-bloated civil service, poor motivation in regular payment of salaries, gratuity and pension and lack of reward for outstanding performance as parts of major threats to achieving higher productivity, particularly in the public sector – the largest employer of labour in the country.

    A public administration expert, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, who chaired the seminar, emphasised the need to form a partnership between research institutes and the government to ensure input of research findings in policy formulation.

    Dr. Olaopa, who is the permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, insisted that planning without productivity measures complicated the country’s governance predicament.

    He said: “Good governance is premised on the capacity of the Nigerian state to efficiently and effectively provide adequate goods and services that will constitute the dividends of democracy for Nigerians.”

    Consequently, Dr. Olaopa and other experts recommended that experts should develop a national productivity policy paper for the incoming Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

    The permanent secretary also listed intervention required in rescuing the situation as including “getting the critical sectors of the economy to articulate their productivity plans based on agreed national benchmark and launch of productivity metrics and tools to be deployed to enable employers and employees to begin to sign in to productivity bargaining”.

    He recommended value system reorientation, national waste reduction strategy as well as research, development and innovation.

    The Director, Productivity Measurement and Statistics Unit of the National Productivity Centre, Alhaji Jibril Yelwa, who delivered a lecture on the topic: “Computing Productivity in the Nigerian Economy: Issues and Challenges,” said the nation would need to double its productivity within the remaining five years to be among the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020.

    His words: “The result of data analysis shows that Nigerians, based on 173.6 million population, achieved labour productivity level of $2,760 per head in 2013, which stood at N430,560 per head.

    “By normal distribution, 60 per cent of the total population was supposed to be the expected working population and the expected productivity levels would have been $5,017 per head or N782,572 per head. The gap was $2,610 or N352,082 per head.

    “The real implication of this is that each Nigerian should double his or her contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to reach the expected level of productivity.”

    The Director-General of NISER, Prof. Olufemi Taiwo, emphasised that people now live in a competitive world.

    But he noted that the reality was yet to fully dawn on leaders on the African continent.

     

  • Govt needs N600b to build 14,000km roads, says Minister

    Nigeria needs N600 billion to build 14,000km of roads yearly to meet its Vision 20:2020 goals, the Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen has said.

    He spoke in Abuja at a lecture organised by the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN), with the theme: Road sector reform for sustainable roads development.

    He said for the country to achieve Vision 20:2020, it must increase its total road network from 200,000km to 300,000km by 2020.

    The Minister said the paved network also needed to be increased from 65,000km to over 200,000km by 2020.

    This, he said, required the construction or paving of an average 14,000km of roads yearly at N600billion per year.

    “The point has been made several times that Nigeria cannot overcome its road infrastructure development challenges unless necessary reforms are embarked upon to reposition the road sector to meet up with the world.

    “The Vision 20:2020 requires that Nigeria attains a Gross domestic Product (GDP) of, at least, $900 billion by 2020 and per capita of at least $4, 000; experience has shown that there is a direct link between economic growth and the size and condition of road networks.

    “Thus, for every one dollar spent on road maintenance, there is a corresponding increase in the nation’s GDP.

    “The nexus between road development and economic growth made it imperative for the improvement of road network in new ways.

    “This requires a paradigm change in the institutional structures that will separate policy, regulate, operation and management of roads as pivotal to roads sector reform.”

    Onolememen explained that the roads are over-burdened because other means like the railways were not working well.

  • Vision 20:2020 for cash-less feasible, says NIBSS

    The vision of Nigeria to be among the top 20 economies in the world providing efficient e-payment services by the year 2020 will be achieved, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said.

    NIBSS Executive Director, Business Development, Chritabel Onyejekwe disclosed this at the weekend during the 13th Card, ATM & Mobile Expo held in Lagos. She said the cash-less banking initiative has recorded huge success and has been able to drastically reduce banks’ operational costs significantly.

    She said NIBSS in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), banks and other international partners are committed to the journey of transformation for the e-payment industry via cash-less economy. He said all the parties agree that a lot of work needs to be done at the grassroots.

    She said SIBS International – a Portuguese firm has been supporting NIBSS in achieving the cash-less objective.

    Speaking at a press conference during the card expo, Managing Director, SIBS International, Pedro Hipolito, pledged the firm’s support towards the success of the cash-less policy initiative in the country.

    He explained that SIBS International, which is a global payment processors, provides flexible and innovative payment services through Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and Point of Sale (PoS) terminal services, network management, full issuing and acquiring transaction processing for clients.

    Hipolito said his firm was opening an office in Lagos in order to play a long-term proximity role in bringing the cash-less policy to fruition. He said the firm has been partnership with NIBSS since 2011.

    He said the firm’s intent in moving into Nigeria was to enable it assist the country in achieving a cash-less economy: “We are going to deepen our presence in Nigeria by opening an office here. This move signals our commitment towards supporting Nigeria’s quest for cash-less payment system. We will ensure that we have people on the ground to cultivate relationships and meaningful exchange of knowledge and also provide cutting edge technology towards that goal”, he said.

     

  • ‘Why Nigeria may miss Vision 20:2020, MDGs’targets’

    IF the nation fails to address the problems of weak industrialisation strategy and weak standard enforcement, the Vision 20:2020 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will remain a mirage, the Director-General, National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr Umar Bindir, has warned.

    Other obstacles identified by the helmsman are weak technological transfer strategy and dearth of risk capital.

    He further warned that if these challenges are not addressed, joining the league of 20 leading economies in the world by 2020 and reducing poverty level in the country would remain a mirage.

    Bindir, who spoke to The Nation at a workshop for reporters on science and technology in Lagos, lamented that most research results from universities and research institutes “end in the valley of death’” without getting to the market or being developed into prototypes or finished products.

    He said instead of setting long term targets, such as Vision 20:2020, Nigeria should set a yearly target.

    He said: “We are not confident about Vison 20:2020. We are cynically waiting for it to come. We have to be innovative.”

    According to him, a whopping N6 trillion was spent on MDGs’ office, saying: ”We are yet to score a goal despite these huge expenditure on pursuing the MDGs.”

    He said Nigeria’s desire to advance technologically would remain a dream because “our science is not focusing on appropriate technology’.

    He lamented that, despite that the country has the largest number of universities and mono/polytechnics in Africa, it has nothing to show for it.

    He said: “There is a poor linkage between research products and marketing and most of our research materials have ended in the valley of death.”

    He advocated for the creation of strong linkages between scientists and policy makers, urging scientists to speak the language understood by the political class on how science, innovation and technology was linked to societal needs, such as job creation and human capital development.

    On which way to go for Nigeria, he said, “Nigeria can acquire technology by transferring it from the various places they have been perfected. Stealing technology is an arrogant demonstration that you have the capcity and capability to replicate what other persons have done. Nigeria has a fantastic platform. We have already acquired a lot of technologies. The challenge now is to move the acquired technology to the next level, to the market where they are needed.”