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Don’t expect ‘with immediate effect’ approach to governance -FG
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L-R: Sam Ohuabunwa, president, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG); Ahmed Mansur, director-general, and Shamsudeen Usman, minister of finance, at the NESG 2008 yearly general meeting yesterday in Lagos.
With the failure of the “immediate effect” approach adopted by the last administration to have profound effect on development as demonstrated by the botched power project, Nigerians have been asked to brace up for a slow but methodical and result-oriented resolution of the country’s developmental challenges.
Shamsuddeen Usman, minister of finance, said the current delay in taking actions by the government is simply the price that Nigerians have to pay to get lasting solutions to various problems facing the country.Usman, who delivered the post-annual general meeting lecture of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), said that the government has no plan for a quick fix and “immediate-effect” approach to handling issues.
He stated that unfolding events in the power sector are enough evidence that the immediate-effect mentality adopted by the past administration yielded little or no result but only provided opportunities for people to waste government resources and illegally enrich themselves.
“Almost every time you rush to do things, you create chances for people to milk the system and to make easy money. Take the power probe, for instance. What we heard is that due process mechanism was simply set aside. We are creating a robust framework for budget monitoring, we intend to measure how well the budget is implemented and not merely looking at the quantum of funds released but by seeing the physical extent of work.”
According to him, the present administration inherited a very weak and shaky foundation despite the reforms that were put in place to ensure that things are properly done. Most of the projects executed were not only ill conceived but also without any physical plan on implementation before the contracts were awarded, he said.
“We took over a house whose foundation was very weak. Do we continue to add more floors to this weak foundation or pause to see whether the foundation can take more floors? It seems wherever we touched, it’s this same mess that we found.
“For instance, a contract of $8.5 billion was long awarded to a company to construct a railway from Lagos to Kano. But the design for the railway is just being done. It is the company that got the contract that commissioned a firm to do the design. Do you think the railway would be designed to cost less than the contract sum”? he queried.
“Take the Mambila power project for instance, the contract was signed, huge sums released but if you go to Mambila nobody knows where the actual site of the project is.”
“We have just renegotiated the $2.5 billion credit with the Chinese and now soon after, there is a stampede to spend the money. But we are saying no! For each project, show us a detailed project design, costing and other documentation.”
On reforms in the ministries, Usman said, “the finance ministry was one of the six ministries chosen for the pilot project on reforms. With what I saw on ground, God forbid that I was taken to another ministry where there is no reform because there is simply no evidence of reform.”
He said the government is willing to pay a little price of being accused of inactivity so long as there would be visible results eventually.
Though the “mess” on ground would take time to clear, he said the government would however not wait to completely clear it before starting something.
“I must mention that while the current emphasis on due process and institutionalisation of reforms may give the impression of delayed visible results, such approach will eventually lead to a legal and regulatory framework in support of economic growth, wealth creation and poverty reduction,” he said.
He maintained that the direction of the current administration is to sustain macroeconomic stability, deepen structural economic reforms through putting in place appropriate sectoral policy measures that would enhance increased participation of private sector in economic management, especially in the area of provision of infrastructure.
According to Usman, the country requires massive investment in infrastructure at various levels (estimate of $50 billion) and that the government alone cannot achieve it in the short term.
He implored the private sector to collaborate with government under the public private sector partnership (PPP) to provide the huge resources needed to fund the projects on ground to meet with developmental plans.
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