Interview

World Bank analysis of Nigerian economy saddening – CISLAC Director

 

Mr. Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) at the just concluded International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group 2019 Spring Meetings in Washington DC, United States, shared  an extract of outcome of the policy dialogue sessions with civil society organisations by World leaders at the meeting, especially as it relates to Nigeria’s subsidy removal, illicit cash flow, economy growth and poverty eradication. Excerpts:

On the scale of 10, how will you score Nigerian government in terms of job creation considering that most of our youths are not attaining successes as we envisage even after graduation?

Before you talk about job creation, you have to talk about the quality of people that we also produce from the University. Many Nigerians who are qualified to get admission into universities, because their parents don’t have money to pay bribe, don’t get admitted. Secondly, every now and then, the universities are on strike because the government is not able to provide them with good facilities and equipment.

The lecturers don’t give much attention to what they teach. They spend little time in the school and go out to seek other means as source of income which complements their means of livelihood. You are actually producing empty people.

Many Nigerian graduates within the last 20 years were not able to get quality education because of the bastardised sector. Many come out of the universities with idleness. Some public officials have used the nature of propaganda to say they are creating jobs. Millions of Nigerians that we know are idle. There are neither jobs nor job opportunities and when there are job opportunities, they only share it among themselves and their family relatives. The new development now is that they now sell public jobs. Such people who pay for jobs cannot be expected to be productive. Many people even lost their lives in the process of recruiting them. If you encourage impunity, there is no way you can encourage job creation. What is happening is deceit. Government must stop the propaganda about job creation.

The government needs to improve on the quality of education if they want real productivity. That’s the only way the issue of job creation performance can be addressed. We can’t keep employing people who will remain redundant. These things don’t happen in the private sector.

We need to make job recruitment very competitive and attractive. Workers also need good remuneration. There should also be diversification of economy. When private sectors are performing, there will be less concentration on government jobs.

What is your view on the economy projection for Nigeria by the World Bank and IMF?

It is very disturbing to see the World Bank analysis of Nigeria’s economy. It is also very clear that because of the absence of sound economic team that is why we are not actually making the necessary progress in terms of consolidating and strengthening our economy in Nigeria.

Therefore, it is not surprising given the fact that Nigeria has not make appreciable progress in terms of diversification of economy, in terms of effective economic management, which is as a result of sound policy or legislative framework that would deal with the economy particularly the oil and gas sector.

You would recall that we have been advocating for the Nigerian government to ensure that we have Petroleum Industry Law passed in the country, which has been languishing in the national assembly. It would have helped to ensure the economy is strengthened, would have eliminated corruption, duplication of responsibilities as well as inefficiency. Nigeria government is yet to do that.

Secondly, the non-oil sector has not been consciously developed in a way that will help drive the economy. You have so many areas that we as a nation is not utilizing very well. That is why we have found ourselves in zero economic stagnation, which the World Bank has rated us. And besides the World Bank, there are other institutions that have warned Nigerian government in terms of ensuring that it should have been more focus, more productive way of improving the economy because once the economy is not rolling well, definitely, the issue of poverty, employment will be affected.

According to IMF Chief, Ms. Lagarde, the country in the last four years has spent over N5 trillion, which could have been channelled towards amenities such as health, education and infrastructure on subsidy, what is your take on IMF’s advice to Nigeria on subsidy removal?

Nigeria should have done away with the subsidy long time ago. The present administration promised to stop paying subsidy because they discovered at that time that it was a scam, it is a fraud and nothing is being subsidised. Unfortunately, we have not seen that commitment being fulfilled by the government.

The government is spending a lot of money on subsidy. For me and many Nigerians, the problem is not about subsidy, the problem is about corruption, it is about inefficiency in the management of so called subsidy because once some people imported petroleum to Nigeria, they claimed to have brought certain amount of tones of petroleum which is not being verified or authenticated and yet they get their payment. That is what the problem is. Had it been the government had eliminated where this fraud is we would not be talking about it. And if government had taken steps to ensure that the refineries were working, you would not be talking about subsidy. It is funny that Nigeria as an oil producing country has to be spending that much to import petroleum for its citizens consumption. If we are able to fix our refineries and make them efficient, and effective, the question of subsidy would have been eliminated.

The issue of illicit financial flow and how it can be tackled also came up, what is your view on this?

The illicit financial flow is a very serious issue because in the region, Nigeria account for over 70 per cent of the illicit financial flow in West Africa and this is an alarming rate. It has not stopped. It is still happening therefore there is no way a nation can have vibrant and productive financial system once people are deliberate and consciously siphoning public funds abroad. I think government anti-corruption should intensify more effort to block these leakages and we must make sure that people that are found guilty or caught in the act are interrogated and prosecuted. And the refunded money can be injected back into the economy so the issues of poverty and employment can be reduced.

Source:  www.bunch.com

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