ERGP: Success lies beyond rhetoric and Chinese loans

For critics of President Muhamadu Buhari who had been belly-aching over the delay in the emergence of an economic blueprint by the administration, the Wednesday event in the Presidential Council Chambers offers some relief. On that day the President formally launched the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which captures the vision of the government, not only to take Nigeria out of the recession, but to stimulate the long elusive sustained growth. According to the President the “ERGP brings together all our sectoral plans for agriculture and food security, energy and transport infrastructure, industrialisation and social investments together in a single document…It builds on the Strategic Implementation Plan and sets out an ambitious roadmap to return the economy to growth; and to achieve a 7% growth rate by 2020…I want to assure all Nigerians that we are approaching the solution to our economic challenges with the same will and commitment we have demonstrated in the fight against corruption, terrorism and militancy.”

A brainchild of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, the plan contains 60 intervention measures which its framers hope would drive Nigeria out of recession and reposition it on the path of sustained growth. It also focuses on five execution priorities, which are central to achieving the 7% growth projected to be achieved by the end of the Plan period, which is the year 2020. The priority areas include Stabilising the Macroeconomic Environment; Achievement of Agriculture and Food Security; Expansion of Energy Infrastructure capacities (power and petroleum); Improving Transportation Infrastructure and Driving industrialisation principally through local and small business enterprises.

Given its elaborate ambit, it ordinarily offers hope and provides Nigerians with a template on which to reconcile with the government, as far as the economy is concerned. However, like any other plan of action, the ERGP remains for now a mere package of intentions which should be greeted with more caution than fanfare. The story of economic development plans in the country is long and replete with bitter lessons that have conditioned Nigerians to receive any new plan with sceptism and suspicion, and they cannot be blamed. The ERGP is no exception and will only escape the ignoble ranks off suspect economic development plans by proving to be workable. That is where the crunch lies.

It is obvious that the government and all Nigerians are agreed that the country needs to move away from the past and into a new world, with the government leading the way. Not surprisingly, therefore, the ERGP has started receiving knocks from sundry quarters, with each trying to highlight one aspect of omission or needed adjustment in the plan. Hence, the government should see the plethora of interventions in good light and take such into consideration, even if only as mere academic appraisals of the plan document. The merit of this appeal is hinged on the traditional disposition of some government officials to routinely play allknowing in the conduct of public affairs, and try to force down on the citizenry, policy initiatives that often add scant value to public welfare. The consequences of such executive obduracy remain the long list of failed government initiatives and over $15 trillion worth of abandoned projects that wastefully litter the country’s entire landscape. The fact that the government officials who facilitate such drain on the common patrimony are hardly sanctioned attests to the perpetuation of the syndrome and painfully accumulates more wastage as time passes.

With the foregoing as backdrop, the ERGP can enjoy public acceptance and buy-in based not on the rhetoric associated with its framing and launch. Its success lies more in moving the entire country as one body towards the objectives outlined in its wordings. This will entail a new regime of synergy between the three tiers of government, even as presently, the interface between them is hardly supportive of the gamechanging agenda of the ERGP. For instance, in a situation where the state governments which are under the suffocating grip of their respective governors have hardly demonstrated any significant tie-in of their budgets with that of the Federal Government, the prospects of the ERGP making the anticipated impact remains doubtful. Just as well is there the need to redefine the expectation that Nigerians at the grassroots in the various local government areas will automatically buy into the ERGP, given the emasculation of the local government system by the same governors.

A ray of hope has, however, been launched by the National Assembly through a Budget Reform Bill that is sponsored by Honourable Yakubu Dogara the Speaker House of Representatives, and which is presently going the legislative rounds. With the primary aim of introducing sanity in the country’s budget culture, which presently is in a state of chaos, the Bill seeks to provide a legal framework for budget calender that schedules preparation, presentation, enactment, implementation, monitoring, and oversight. It also seeks to provide penalties for contravention of the Appropriation Act. Without equivocation, the incontrovertible merit of such a Budget Reform Bill - especially Who then can help preach the sermon that 7% growth based on Chinese loans, and which are to be repaid by unborn Nigerians as economic slaves of the future, is of inferior strategic value to Nigeria today than 3% growth, based on the enterprise and sweat of the Nigerian people its promise for the success of ERGP dictates a synergy between the National Assembly and the Presidency towards fostering its early passage and assent. And for the purpose of success of the ERGP in the states, modalities for encouraging them; in particular the houses of assembly to embrace the Budget reform agenda need to be considered. Only a unified front by all Nigerians working as one can pull the country out of its present travails.

One priority area of the ERGP of pivotal concern is the goal of driving industrialisation through local small and medium scale enterprises. Several observers have questioned the prospects of such a dispensation when the same Nigerian businesses are denied any form of protection from the government, which has opened the floodgates for aliens, especially the Chinese to displace such local businesses even in their homeland. It is not a secret that Chinese business, interests today constitute the biggest threat to Nigeria’s MSMEs. Their areas of ‘intervention’ cover local food industries, forest exploitation, hawking, personal services and even the ignoble sex trade. It will not be surprising to many Nigerians that even the projected 7% growth targeted in the ERGP may be premised not on Nigerian enterprise, but on handouts from China.

Who then can help preach the sermon that 7% growth based on Chinese loans, and which are to be repaid by unborn Nigerians as economic slaves of the future, is of inferior strategic value to Nigeria today than 3% growth, based on the enterprise and sweat of the Nigerian people.