President Muhammadu Buhari monday in Abuja identified five key sectors which the country must focus on to revive the economy.
In a welcome address he delivered at the
opening of the two-day National Economic Council retreat holding in
Abuja, Buhari said the challenges militating against development in
agriculture, power, manufacturing, housing and the health care sectors
must be squarely addressed to lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
The president expressed regret that
despite huge oil revenues, the nation’s health sector remained
undeveloped, forcing Nigerians to spend $1 billion yearly to get medical
treatment abroad.
He lamented the state of the health
sector and said urgent measures must be put in place to improve health
facilities in the country.
“In attacking the challenges of this
sector, we could start with more funding for health centres to improve
service delivery. The World Bank and World Health Organisation (WHO)
could be persuaded to increase their assistance,” he added.
The purpose of the retreat as outlined
in the retreat concept notes is to generate immediate, medium and
long-term viable policy solutions to the economic challenges facing the
country at both the federal and state levels.
The president, who noted that inadequate
power supply continues to undermine the country’s capacity to develop
in all sectors, said his government would generate 10,000MW of
electricity in the next three years. “In 2016 alone, we intend to add
2,000MW to the national grid,” he added.
Stressing that the incessant outages in
the country were not a laughing matter, he said: “This sector has been
privatised but has yet to show any improvement in the quality of
service. Common public complaints are:
•Constant power cuts destroying economic activity and affecting the quality of life.
•High electricity bills despite power cuts.
•Low supply of gas to power plants due to vandalism by terrorists.
•Obsolete power distribution equipment such as transformers.
•Power fluctuations, which damage manufacturing equipment and household appliances.
•Low voltage which cannot run industrial machinery.
Buhari said insufficient electricity was
the problem of past governments but will be properly looked into by his
government, also promising to conclude the privatisation process
started by his predecessor.
“These are some of the problems, which
defied successive governments. In our determination to change, we must
and will put a stop to power shortages.
“Key points to look at here are:
privatisation – we are facing the classic dilemma of privatisation:
public interest vs profit motive. Having started, we must complete the
process.
“But the National Electricity Regulatory
Commission (NERC), the regulatory authority, has a vital job to ensure
consumers get value for money and the overall public interest is
safe-guarded.
“Government is to fast-track the
completion of pipelines from gas points to power stations and provide
more security to protect gas and oil pipelines.
“Power companies should be encouraged to
replace obsolete equipment and improve the quality of service and
technicians,” he said.
While expressing concern at the
inability of manufacturers to access foreign exchange for their raw
materials, goods and services, the president ordered a fresh campaign to
patronise Made-in-Nigeria goods. On this, he said all uniforms in
government-sponsored institutions should be sourced from local
factories.
“From information at my disposal, if we
aggregate public views from the grassroots, city dwellers, economic
managers, consumer groups, the labour unions and other stakeholders of
the economy, there is near unanimity about the ills of our economy. But
naturally, there are divergent views about solutions.
“I am going to throw at this gathering,
some random policy options filtered from across the spectrum of our
stakeholders on four (4) selected sectors of our economy.
“These are: agriculture, power, manufacturing and housing. (The president eventually added health care as the fifth.)
“I have not touched education, science
and technology pointedly because these related subjects require a whole
retreat by themselves.”
On agriculture, Buhari said that both
peasant and mechanised farmers agreed with the general public that food
production and self-sufficiency required urgent government action.
However, he noted that “for too long
government policies on agriculture have been half-hearted, suffering
from inconsistencies and discontinuities”.
According to him, the country’s real wealth is in farming, livestock, hatcheries, fishery, horticulture and forestry.
In order to address some of the
challenges facing the agricultural sector which he said included rising
food prices and the importation of subsidised food products, the
president directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to mobilise banks
to make credits available to farmers.
Buhari said: “First we need to carry the
public with us for the new initiatives. Accordingly the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the states should convene
early meetings of stakeholders and identify issues with a view to
addressing them.
“Inform the public in all print and
electronic media on government efforts to increase local food production
to dampen escalating food prices.
“Banks should be leaned upon to
substantially increase their lending to the agricultural sector. Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should bear part of the risk of such loans as a
matter of national policy.”
On the manucaturing sector, the
president said: “It grieves me that so many manufacturing industries in
the country today are groaning and frustrated because of lack of foreign
exchange to import raw materials and spare parts.
“Painful though this is, I believe it is
a temporary phase which we shall try to overcome but there are deeper,
more structural problems bedeviling local industries which this retreat
should identify and proffer short and long-term answers to.”
In order to address the problem
associated with high cost of borrowing money, Buhari directed CBN to
create more incentives and ease credit terms for lending to
manufacturers.
He also said that the Infrastructure
Development Fund be fast-tracked to unlock resources to address
infrastructure deficiencies.
“There should be more fiscal incentives
for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which prove themselves capable
of manufacturing quality products good enough for export,” he added.
On housing, the president put Nigeria’s housing deficit at about 16 million units.
He said: “In our successful campaign to
win the general election last year our party, the APC, promised to build
a million housing units a year. This will turn out to be a very tall
order unless:
“The federal government builds 250,000
units and the 22 APC states together manage another 250,000 units; then
we invite foreign investors together with local domiciled big
construction companies to enter into commercial housing building to pick
up the rest.”
Buhari called for a review of the
relevant laws to make the process of acquiring statutory rights of
occupancy shorter, less cumbersome and less costly.
He further suggested: “Court procedures
for mortgages cases should make enforcement more efficient. The
Ministries of (Power) Works and Housing should upgrade its
computerisation of title registration system for greater efficiency.”
Culled from Thisday
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