PRINCE FRANK UKONGA LECTURE SERIES 7 MACRO ECONOMY, BUDGETING AND IMPLIMENTATION IN THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION. BY PRINCE FRANK UKONGA


PRINCE FRANK UKONGA LECTURE SERIES 7
MACRO ECONOMY, BUDGETING AND IMPLIMENTATION IN THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION.
BY PRINCE FRANK UKONGA.
The year has entered the last quarter of 2012 and it is time to prepare and present the Budget for the year 2013 by the Ruling Cabinet. The President of the Nigerian Federation his Excellency Goodluck Jonathan has presented a budget estimate of 4.6 Trillion Naira to the National Assembly waiting for discussions and ratification. A true democratic dispensation is beginning to forge out as the House through the speaker Hon. Tambuwal insisted on the estimate of $90 per barrel benchmark and the presidency insisting on $75 as benchmark, somehow it will be resolved, but the point here is that the excess revenue proceeds that accrue to the federation are always share between the three tie of Government and till today there has not been an enabling legislation on accountability , probing and subsequent punitive measures in place that will guard this excess revenue acreage outside the Budget from been looted or mismanaged by the recipients of the money. At the end the masses are shortchanged. As in the way Ex Governor Alao Akala of Oyo State and some other Governors allegedly spent the excess crude oil revenue which generated lots of public concern in the 6 th Republic. The seventh Republic has began in earnest and though the fiscal year of 2012 was the first budget of the 7 th Republic which many analysts have started to question the budget implementations as to what percentage has really been implemented. For Example INEC’s Chairman Prof, Atahiru Jega cried out last week that out of the 35 billion Naira budgeted to INEC in the 2012 budget only 10 billion Naira has been released to them at the end of the 3 quarter and he said this has crumbled INEC activities and many things they wanted to do like the permanent voters card project and upgrading the voters register Nationwide as well as paying of staff salary. If INEC can be so staved of funds which are one of the most important Institution of Democracy and it’s the only symbol that differentiates it from Military rule can be so staved of funds then you can imagine other departments and Ministries who by oat of governmental secrecy cannot cry out.
Discipline, Accountability and Transparency: The point here is not to question the rational of Government but at least we should Endeavour to do things timely by releasing budgetary allocations to various segments of the economy at the right time. We cognitize that a budget is a proposal of institutional spending as against projected targeted income and there are avenues to either scale up or prune down the budget depending on income. Whence, we should Endeavour to practice fiscal and budgetary discipline, transparency, openness and timeliness in order to move the country out the woods, and to lay a formidable foundation for our fragile democratic dispensation.
Vision 20:2020: Secondly we have to look at our philosophy and ideological focus when making a budget addressed to achieve certain goals as we jockey towards a larger goal of the future. And to my understanding Vision 20: 2020 is the only visible larger goal that the Nigerian federation is committed to, and the year 2020 is only 7 years away from the proposed budget of 2013, and by the end of 2015 which will be the end of this present mandate, year 2020 will only be 5 years yonder and this is the time to begin to focus all our energies toward achieving the vision 20; 2020. Though all departments need money to operate but then we should endeavor to focus on some certain issues that will bring the Nation closer to achieving a target closer to what is expected in that department and continue to grow it till 2020. Vision 202020 was invented by Prince Frank Ukonga for the Military government in the year 1990 when I was approached by their consultants to the Banking Industry to generate a big concept as title of a compilation of the Lectures and dissertation of the shakers and movers of the Nigerian vibrant intellectual community in the Babangida era, Currently intellectualism is virtually dead in Nigeria. I invented it as Vision 2000. And IBB institutionalized it. then President Shonekan added ten years to the Vision and mad it Vision 2010 , General Abacha retained it as Vision 2010, Genral Abdulsalami Abubakar retained it as Vision 2010 while when Obasanjo added another 10 years to the vision to make for Vision 20, 2020. President Yar Adua retained it as Vision 2020 and mapped out a blue print to achieving that Vision, which President Goodluck Jonathan inherited and we are hopeful that he is going to make a difference in actualizing the great ideals of the Vision. Other Nations like Russia, Georgia, Ukraine etc have joined in the Vision 2020 and have adopted the Vision as well so we are not alone in the race virtually the whole world is in the race for 2020.
Security: For example security has taken the lion share of 2013 proposed budget which is in order, as it is imperative to provide security and other enabling environment for business and enterprise to thrive. While education trailed behind and works came third, in that order.
Infrastructural Development: It is no gain saying that the Nation needs as a matter of urgency a Marshal plan of infrastructural development, which perhaps should take second position in the 2013 budget proposal. When we educate peoples and cannot gainfully employ them due to infrastructural decay as in electricity generation, roads and other public utilities, it’s as good as wasting the finance used to educate them. So we should endeavor to prioritize our spending in order of dialectics based on serious research and development.
The Real Sector Economy: Industry and Manufacturing: Industry and manufacturing should take the third position as it had really trialed behind due to epileptic power /electricity generation and they are a large employer of labor force. Many of our manufacturers have relocated their plants to neighboring countries of Ghana etc because of electricity and this is the time to recall and attract them back by proposing a manufacturing friendly budget. The real sector of the economy provides less than 5% of our GDP which is exceeding low. And the twin ship of getting that segment of the economy up is electricity and the manufacturing of Liquid steel as in Ajaokuta Iron and steel complex and rejiging all the rolling mills which will provide more than one million jobs and five million jobs in its down stream sectors. It will also attract Foreign Direct Investments into the country.
Education, Empowerment of youth and women: Youth and women development is very important as in being able to tap the large percentage of this people that constitute more than 70% of our demography. We should avoid the instance that this large army of youth will have to grow old of above 60 years and not gainfully tapping their great potentials in providing technical education to them and assisting most of them to set up via provision of seed capital for them. Otherwise in 3 decades from now Nigeria will enter into another demographic category where we shall begin to evince a large population of poor, old people with a small population of youth to fend for them as in many European societies of today. This is another time bomb.
Health: Whence Nigeria is at a cross road  with many booty traps in the context of security, job creation, demography, infrastructural development health care of malaria, typhoid and AID/HIV pandemic. In some African countries more than 30% of the production force is HIV/AID positive and this is also a big time bomb as in 2 decades more than 30% of the population of such country will be wiped away due to AID/HIV related death. So we should do more in AID/HIV prevention through enlightenment and preventive health care system which should reflect in our fiscal budgeting..
Agriculture: We should begin to look at the issue of ecological changes and environmental degradation and make provisions for the hazards that could come up as in flooding which will affect agriculture and harvest. We should engage in Agricultural R and D as to begin to invent flood resistant seedlings otherwise we shall become a net importer of food very soon and it may eat up a large chunk of receipts from monoculture oil export industry of the Nigeria state.
Ecological changes and force Majore: We should also endeavor to dredge the river Niger and build more dams and reservoirs on its course so as to secure rain water and flood preventing it from overflowing its banks during raining season. Canalization of the cities and embankments and wind / storms breakers as in the coastline should also be looked in to. We should also begin a massive re a forestation of Nigeria and the National Assembly is to put up new legislations against tree falling, poaching of forest for wood and animals etc. The more trees we have the more we shall be able to divert the adverse effects of rainfall, drought, overheating of the planet due to the emission of carbon monoxide by factories of Northern hemispheres away from our atmosphere. We cannot do all at the same time due to lack of developmental finance on a global basis, but we can begin to plan for some of them.
International Relations: We need to rejig our foreign policy thrust and to invest in our embassies worldwide both in the provisions of good environment to project Nigeria outside of Nigeria as well as invigorate our relations with other Nations based on diplomatic reciprocity and detente. Many Nigerians are languishing in foreign cells and prison for sundry offenses of passport or vaccination yellow card etc and some countries are unnecessary hostile to Nigerians if their expectations of what they expects from Nigeria comes short in the aspects of patronage, so we have to rejig our foreign ministry with new vigor, new focus and new empowerment to reduce the sufferings of Nigerians in other countries.
CBN, Banking and Mobilization of Developmental Finance: What should concentrate the mind of Malam Sanusi Lamido is how to mobilize developmental finance both intrinsic and extrinsic to compliment the actualization of the 2013 fiscal Budget by putting in place functional revenue mobilization instruments that will aid the government of President Goodluck Jonathan to achieving set down goals while carrying other Bankers of the Mega Banks along. According to Dr Mohammed Abdullah, former Director of the IMF, and also of the World Bank. He theorized that in the Schumpeterian sense the duties of Central Banking in Africa will include effective mobilization of developmental finance via enabling instruments to compliment the earnings of African states if they are to become relent in the 21 century and avoid the debt traps of the 1980 and 1990s of the previous century. The erudite intelligentsia noticed that the mobilization of rural and near urban settlements of African countries for developmental finance will play a big role in budgetary financing of African governments if functional instruments’ are invented by the Central Banks of African Nations and he said that more than 70% of the total money in circulation in many African countries never pass through the organized banking systems, He also advocated saving on a National basis as the savings/ GDP ratio of most African countries is low Nigeria is below 2.5% and the lowest in sub Saharan Africa. While other Francophone counties of Sub Saharan Africa has Savings /GDP ratio of above 12 % and in the United State about 55% and in Germany, Japan, Russia its above 60%. While on the extrinsic side mobilization of developmental finance via equity participation, FDI- Foreign Direct Investments and other forms of bilateral relationships with other Nations will help. And to achieve these new post industrial Central Banking stratagems, we need really sound and articulate, brilliant Governors of Central Banks for African Nations and not the arm chair bankers or half backed bankers. The world is becoming more and more competitive as the resources available are declining on daily basis. So 2013 budget has to bring on board brilliant people with great ideas to navigate Nigeria out of the clumsy stormy seas of international pluralism.



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