With the federal cabinet settling down to work, expectations are high for performance, particularly in attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda (SDA) through projects execution.
How far can ministers go? Correspondent SAM NWOKORO takes a glimpse.
A lot is expected from President Muhammadu Buhari. He took a whole six months, from May 29 till the last month in 2015 to select his ministers and allocate portfolios to them.
They were cleared by the Senate just shortly before Christmas. Thus it could be reasoned that those ministers are formally kicking off their programmes execution from this January.
The 2016 Appropriation Bill for 2016 prepared by Buhari has been promised accelerated scrutiny and passage by the Parliament. Most ministries have already appropriated their allocations.
What the public now looks to earnestly is how the N6 trillion fiscal plan will ameliorate their hardship and enable the government attain the SDA mandate issued by the UN to countries to anchor their developmental priorities to ameliorate poverty or eliminate it totally by 2030.
Implementation of SDA began this January.
In a country always contending with agitations from various regions and groups about inequality in development, the implementation of the 2016 budget amid reports of many abandoned projects is sure the kernel that the ministers have to battle with.
Would they pursue development policies and project execution in line with SDA? How far can they go and what hindrances lie in the way? Would political considerations, party loyalty, and special interests influence their work?
The public is watching.
Cry for change
Nigerians cried for change before the inauguration of the current government.
“It would be unfortunate if Nigerians voted for change only to find themselves in the same state. Every government is expected to add something from where the predecessor stopped.
Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) South East Co-ordinator, Ugochukwu Ezike said after the selection of ministers.
“Nigerians felt they were bored with the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) government and that is why they voted for the APC (All Progressive Congress) with a former head of state as its presidential candidate.
“So Nigerians are justified to expect quality governance that surpasses that of its predecessor.”
There is a litany of uncompleted projects begging for attention, most of which are critical in the realisation of the government’s change template.
The current N6 trillion can complete all abandoned projects nationwide.
This hope is reinforced by daily disclosures of recovered looted funds and promises by foreign partners in the fight against corruption to help the country recover more stolen funds stashed abroad.
Earlier this month, the Swiss authorities gave an assurance another tranche of $300 million of Abacha loot would soon be released to Nigeria.
Most observers believe that Buhari may not have expressed too much optimism when he said the government is not afraid of funding the expansionary N6 trillion budget.
Abandoned projects
One of the major areas the government needs to pay attention is the more than 1,000 abandoned federal projects, which the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan had catalogued.
Many of them are roads that are of strategic importance to the economy.
They include the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Second Niger Bridge, the Birnin Kebbi-Niger Road, the East-West rail line.
A lot can be achieved with the N430 billion earmarked for infrastructure in the budget of the Works, Housing and Power Ministry for this year alone.
Gilbert Orji, an investment banker, said: “Infrastructure is critical in the realisation of the expansionary budget. So the mammoth allocation given to it is not surprising.
“Much of the big projects have already been started, so what I expect Babatude Fashola to do is finish up those ones that are central to the economy by paying in due time.
“Virtually all the federal road projects are being executed under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Orji urged Fashola to “cancel the licence holders of the GENCOS (electricity generating companies) and DISCOS (electricity distribution companies). They are economic saboteurs.
“They were only exploiting people and were not actually committing funds into the power plants they bought from government.”
He said most holders of power licences are big wigs of political parties and that was why they mobilised voters against Jonathan because they knew that if he won a second term he would withdraw their licences.
Petroleum
The fact that Buhari himself is in charge of the Petroleum Ministry makes it all the more the centre of criticism.
The problem of fuel import and the regulated deregulation is a gambit Abuja hopes will stabilise pump price and make it affordable, even with subsidy removed.
The government expects this scenario to play out fully when local refineries currently at various stages of turn around start producing petrol to augment imports.
This seems a safe escape route from social unrest and economic dislocation, according to a political scientist, Chucks Onuoha, a commentator on public affairs.
He reiterated that Buhari, “who is in charge of that area should be mindful of selling oil blocks to portfolio scavengers who will not develop the field at a time. Nigeria needs to improve her reserve and production.
“His predecessors played a lot of politics with oil blocks’ allocation, even though there was competitive bidding. This anomaly contributed to why many blocks remained undeveloped.”
Another important matter in the petroleum sector is the planned resumption of oil prospecting in the Chad basin.
Experts have argued many times that with the new 3-Dimension seismic drilling technology, finding oil in the Chad basin is no longer a cumbersome or wasteful exercise it was in the past.
Most welcomed the need to “balance,” in line with Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu’s explanation “to achieve geo-economic balance.”
The National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) supports drilling in lake Chad.
In remains to be seen how Abuja will accomplish the task with its zero-budgeting template amid uncertainty over revenue realisation for the 2016 budget.
The government says it will borrow to finance drilling but International Monetary Fund Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, has carpeted any thought of external funding of the budget by Buhari’s economic team.
Solid minerals
Many calls have been made for effective supervision of the solid minerals sector, where there have been reports of illegal mining.
The past administration made efforts for effective and profitable commercialisation of the mining industry as well as regulatory frameworks.
However, the major task slowing harnessing solid minerals sector and making it contribute substantially to government revenue is the paucity of investors with financial muscle to procure the technology and manpower.
Many trade delegations that have visited Nigeria in recent times have expressed a lot of interest in solid minerals.
But only a few have got down to work due to bottlenecks such as the rights of states and councils to tap solid minerals in their domain without running into a constitutional crisis Abuja.
Labour and productivity
This may be a year of labour crisis for Labor and Productivity Minister, Chris Ngige.
The Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) has asked the government to increase minimum wage from N18,000 to between N40,000 and N50,000.
The NLC is yet to agree on any figure with the government even as some states are yet to pay the N18,000 minimum wage which came into effect in 2012.
Apart from Labour, both the public and private sectors are also demanding better remuneration and condition of service.
So, Ngige may be saddled with many complaints from labour camps as the year runs through.
Internal affairs
Interior Minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau, has much to deal with about civilian security.
Political agitations and rights grievances continue to dog the nation, and the complains have become more disturbing in recent times.
Biafra agitation, Shitte protest against rights violations, prisoners’ welfare, poor internal security vigilance, police and pensioners’ welfare continue to soil the face of Nigeria’s democracy.
Ezike said: “In recent times, the internal cohesion of the country has been shaken.
“In fact, right from before the general election last year, the security profile of the country has not been anything to cheer about, even though we are in peacetime. That I think is a challenge for the new minister of internal affairs.
“Citizenship in the nation is increasingly being made unattractive due to the behaviour of both state and non-state actors in the country.
“The government has been belligerent in reacting to civilian complaints, and human rights violations is witnessing a discomforting upsurge.
“Many groups have risen in recent times clamouring for one thing or anther and demanding certain things from the government, even self-determination.
“Within the ambit of universal conventions of fundamental human rights, those agitations are not treasonable.
“What the state is expected to do is realise these things are normal occurrences in a democratic setting. That should not be construed to mean that one is encouraging lawlessness.
“State actors at all levels should also realise that they have been shortchanging citizens, especially by corrupt practices as we are now hearing.
“Today, leadership is finding it a bit difficult to infuse committed followership due to sundry misdeeds of state managers of the past years. The government needs to do more to get more confident followership from the people.”
Economy and budget
National Planning Minister, Udoma Udoma; Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun; and Trade and Investment Minister, Okechukwu Enelamah, all have their work cut out to implement the N6 trillion stimulus budget.
The budget is full of welfarist packages amid dwindling revenue and uncertainty of realistic funding and seamless implementation.
At least some sort of subsidy still exist in it even though practically it is not being felt at the filling stations for now, and possibly in the next few months.
Millions of unemployed and under employed youths are going to be paid a monthly stipend of N5,000 while pupils are going to be fed in government schools.
Oil price has fallen far below the budget benchmark of $38 per barrel. It now sells around $30.
Lagarde announced shortly after the budget presentation that Nigeria does not need borrowing to fund the fiscal plan, even while she on the same spot said an IMF team would visit Abuja to assess the budget.
Then you ask, “For what then?” Two days after Lagarde’s departure controversy arose over the whereabouts of the budget proposal as if it were a tissue paper which can be dropped just anywhere.
Controversy over “missing” budget has led to allegation of plans to doctor the budget since economic realities at home and abroad are shaking the government’s confidence to fully implement it.
What with the naira depreciating to as low as N300 to the dollar?
Buhari’s economic managers have a lot to convince Nigerians in the days ahead that they really know what they said they are going to do with the economy.
Trade and investment
Many issues confront the Trade and Investment Ministry.
The Common ECOWAS tariff which resolution was passed in December last year is not being well felt yet. Nigerian businessmen plying the West coast route still pay double tariffs here and away.
Nigerian ports are still expensive and much businesses are being transacted in neighboring countries’ ports.
The face off between the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and MTN is still one striking disincentive for foreign direct investment (FDI) on which the government anchors much of its 2016 budget plans.
One folk asked the other day at a bus station: “What does the government want to achieve by trying to castrate MTN, is it the only telecom company that has ever violated its rules?
“Is it sure only MTN is guilty of allowing unregistered lines? Does it know the implication of MTN repatriating all its money from Nigeria’s 21 banks when the treasury single account (TSA) mandate has taken money out of the banking system?
“Does the government know the implication of imposing N1 trillion fine on MTN? That means the telecom company will increase all charges to recoup it from us (subscribers).
“Does it know that MTN carries most of the broadband traffic in the country and other telecom traffics?”
Nigerians believe the Trade and Investment Ministry should have intervened in these kinds of issues in the interest of business and the economy.
