Nigeria Economy | |
Nigeria Economy | |
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I just received a text requesting for comment from one newspaper correspondent. He wrote about ‘rumours’ that the government is compelling all MDA s - Ministries, Departments and Agencies to reduce their budgets for 2019 and wanted to know the implications. In the news is also the fact that government has taken from the budget for education, health and other essentials, to fund the 2019 elections. I met a director in one of the parastatals too who confirmed to me that government was broke. Now, what I don’t understand is how government can be broke but those top people who work for government can still have access to all the appurtenances of office. The pace of foreign travel by top directors have increased of late. Ministers and DGs no longer live in Nigeria. Yet government is broke. Broke when it comes to doing something real for the most-vulnerable Nigerians
It seems evident that we have to fight harder to be heard. The Buhari government cannot help itself even if its own life depended on it. The government is out of control and in a tailspin. So long as they resume daily and there is some borrowed fund to spend and keep up appearances, they keep going. We are a religious people and many people go through life hinging on prayers that tomorrow will suddenly be better. The government is poised to ignore all the arguments we. have put forward that this is not the time to reduce budgets. The essence of our petition though, is to call good attention to our budgets - the assumptions undermining them, the process of putting together, their emphasis and focus, their implementation. And that we are determined to do whatever it takes.
How
someone responsible will ignore the FACT that our shambolic budgets are almost
the lowest in the world in gross terms and the lowest compared to our GDP beats
me. How enlightened people will not see the shame in this fact further knocks
me out. How we justify collective mediocrity while chasing personal glory does
my head in. Most Nigerians would even amplify the dismissive explanation that
those in government put forward that ‘there is no money’. There is no money when it comes to social
services and provision of public goods, but enough when they want to gallivant
across the world and back. We must never
kowtow to this newfound mediocrity.
Something must give. We must stay on this issue for as long as it takes.
The few people who are watching the economy know we are in an inexplicable
situation. The only group which gets some level of assurance from the Nigerian
economy, are our foreign creditors. No
one can wriggle out of the obligations to these guys. After that, government functionaries help
themselves and the remaining 190million scramble over themselves to grab the
crumbs like pitiable creatures. All my writeups is about how we can reform this
system.
So, in addition to the Biblical wearing of sack cloths and sprinkling
their bodies with ashes in a show of contrition, our leaders must thoroughly
and totally forsake their ways in order for this country to avoid destruction.
This is the time to cut all nonsensical spending. I will be watching the 2019
budget very keenly, like a hawk. I am just being proactive in shouting out now,
because soon enough it will be too late to speak up. The budget would have
progressed and will become intractable. And the 2019 budget will dictate how
the next few years will go. The Medium Term Expenditure Framework has already
been put together along the same mediocre, underachieving and anti-people
lines. It must be thoroughly and summarily reviewed. I believe the government
is listening though even if they pretend. The Minister for Budgeting and
Economic Planning revealed last weekend that they will not be accommodating the
usual mad purchase of luxury vehicles, residential houses, endless software
purchase and other hopeless stuff that make it into the budget in this country
year after year. The role of we the people is to ensure those items do not make
it into the 2019 budget through the backdoor. Also we should make sure that
whatever is on the budget works for the people. We must see how it trickles
down. 2019 and going forward should be for irreversible, tangible achievements
for Nigerians.
Let me tell you a story, dear reader.
The USA went into the Great Depression in 1929. So also many top
countries around the world. Next year 2019 will make that a 90 years
anniversary. Many people think the depression was triggered by the crash
of the New York Stock Market in that year, but other scholars point to a
combination of issues. The USA had just had a roaring 1920s. Then countries
went into protectionism, and there were a few environmental mismanagement and
droughts in the midwest, plus a misunderstanding of how to handle economic crisis
as at that time. Some believe that pro-cyclical policies were adopted which
deepened the crisis. This is somehow similar to Nigeria today. The government
is cutting budgets, deepening the crisis, when it should be engaged in
countercyclical policies that lift the country out of the current slump.
In economics, pro-cyclical policy are policies that perpetuate the status quo
or deepen it. If you dont desire status quo, you apply countercyclical issue,
which reverses current situations. The permanent reality for countries
like Nigeria has always been economic depression though. The symptoms are
there; high poverty and hunger rates, high unemployment, high inflation, high
crime rates, high corruption and nepotism and what have you. These have been
our reality for as long as one can remember. It is also worth mentioning that
since the Great Depression, no other OECD economy has admitted its economy
being in depression anymore, and the economic term seem to have dropped off the
lexicon.
So the American economy struggled through the 1930s. FD Roosevelt came
up with a number of clever policies in his time, which only had marginal
effect. It wasn’t until 1942 when he banned the purchase or sale of new cars
for two years and directed car manufacturers to support the war effort and for
every household to chip in that the USA finally got out of depression. If I may
list the herculean efforts that lifted the USA I will count:
The fifth point is very important. I have always advised that Nigeria go
into war mode against poverty and our permanent economic depression. That is
how the problem must be approached. Our current and future presidents must see
themselves as wartime leaders for as far as the eyes can see. Anything less is
just akin to kicking the can down the road.
Unfortunately for Nigeria, the society and economy has broken. We are
now almost left carrying the baggage of a broken society and economy with the
expected destruction that comes with it. To boot, we are not disunited and at
war with ourselves. Instead of a war against poverty, we went into an
undeclared civil war mode. If you ask Nigerian politicians and top civil
servants now to defer their gratification and stop unnecessary travels and
purchase of luxury cars, they will argue with you. Someone will say now that
its his turn you don’t want him to enjoy. If we say our civil servants should
use the cars they’ve bought already for 4 years, they will throw
tantrums. If government functionaries are not ready to even put in the
work and sacrifice, how then will they convince outsiders? I can assure
you dear readers that prayers will bot solve this problem. We just have to hold
our noses and start diving down to the bottom of the sea like pearl hunters.
Now is the time.
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