The National Economic Council Retreat commenced today in Abuja with the President giving his Opening address. This is a full text of the President's speech. Read below:
I am delighted to have the
opportunity to address this distinguished and all-important retreat on
the Nigerian economy. The purpose of this retreat as outlined in the
Retreat Concept Notes is to generate immediate, medium and long-term
viable policy solutions to the economic challenges facing us at both the
Federal and State levels.
From information at my
disposal, if we aggregate public views from the grassroots, city
dwellers, the economic managers, consumer groups, the 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
Housing
I
have not touched Education, Science and Technology pointedly because
these related subjects require a whole retreat by themselves.
Distinguished
Ladies and gentlemen, these suggestions I am putting forward to you are
by no means directives but a contribution to your discourse.
AGRICULTURE
On
Agriculture today, both the peasant and the mechanized farmers agree
with the general public that food production and self-sufficiency
require urgent government action. For too long government policies on
agriculture have been half-hearted, suffering from inconsistencies and
discontinuities.
Yet our real wealth is in farming, livestock, hatcheries, fishery, horticulture and forestry.
From the information available to me the issues worrying the public today are:
· Rising food prices, such as maize, corn, rice and garri.
· Lack of visible impact of government presence on agriculture.
·
Lack of agricultural inputs at affordable prices. Cost of fertilizers,
pesticide and labour compound the problems of farming. Extension
services are virtually absent in several states.
· Imports of subsidized food products such as rice and poultry discourage the growth of domestic agriculture.
·
Wastage of locally grown foods, notably fruit and vegetables which go
bad due to lack of even moderate scale agro-processing factories and
lack of feeder roads.
These problems I have
enumerated are by no means exhaustive and some of the solutions I am
putting forward are not necessarily the final word on our agricultural
reform objectives:
· First, we need to carry the
public with us for 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.
·
States should increase their financial support through community
groups. The appropriate approach should be through leaders of community
groups such as farmers cooperatives.
· Provision
of feeder roads by state governments to enable more effective evacuation
of produce to markets and processing factories.
When
I was a schoolboy in the 1950’s the country produced one million tons
of groundnuts in two successive years. The country’s main foreign
exchange earners were groundnut, cotton, cocoa, palm kernel, rubber and
all agro/forest resources.
Regional Banks and
Development Corporations in all the three regions were financed from
farm surpluses. In other words, our capital formation rode on the backs
of our farmers. Why was farming so successful 60 years ago? The answers
are simple:
· Access to small scale credits
· Inputs (fertilizers, herbicides etc)
· Extension services.
Now
we have better tools, better agricultural science and technology, and
greater ability to process. With determination we can succeed.
POWER
Nigerians’
favourite talking point and butt of jokes is the power situation in our
country. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is no longer a laughing matter.
We must and by the grace of God we will put things right. In the three
years left for this administration we have given ourselves the target of
ten thousand megawatts distributable power. In 2016 alone, we intend to
add two thousand megawatts to the national grid.
This sector has been privatized but has yet to show any improvement in the quality of service. Common public complaints are:
• Constant power cuts destroying economic activity and affecting quality of life.
• High electricity bills despite power cuts.
• Low supply of gas to power plants due to vandalization 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.
These
are some of the problems, which defied successive governments. In our
determination to CHANGE we must and will, insha Allah, put a stop to
power shortages. Key points to look at here are:
·
Privatization. We are facing the classic dilemma of privatization:
Public interest Vs Profit Motive. Having started, we must complete the
process. But National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the
regulatory authority, has a vital job to ensure consumers get value for
money and over-all public interest is safe-guarded.
·
Government to fast-track 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.
MANUFACTURING
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 short and long-term
answers to. Chief among these problems are:
· Inadequate infrastructure:
Power
Roads
Security
leading to increase in costs of making Made-in Nigeria goods pricier than imports
· High Cost of Borrowing Money:
Manufacturers
Association of Nigeria (MAN) has been hammering on the fact that high
lending rates make manufacturing unviable and unprofitable.
· Lack of Long Term Funding:
The
Nigerian Capital Market has not completely recovered from the 2008
worldwide crisis. Banks’ funding sources are short-term in nature due to
sources of the liabilities.
· Under-developed
Science and Technology Research: As with Agriculture, Nigeria’s
industries are in the main outmoded and industrial practices far behind
those in advanced countries.
· Unions:
We
need to protect our workers from exploitation, but unions must
cooperate with entrepreneurs to substantially improve productivity and
quality of products if we are to move forward.
· Smuggling:
Need I say more?
Recommended Actions on industries are:
·
The infrastructure Development Fund should be fast-tracked to unlock
resources so that infrastructural deficiencies can be addressed.
·
There should be more fiscal incentives for Small and Medium Enterprises
(SMEs), which prove themselves capable of manufacturing quality
products good enough for export.
· Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should create more incentives and ease credit terms for lending to manufacturers.
·
A fresh campaign to patronize Made-in-Nigeria goods should be launched.
Example: all uniforms in government-sponsored institutions should be
sourced from local factories.
HOUSING
Some
estimates put Nigeria’s housing deficit at about sixteen million units.
In our successful campaign to win the general elections 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 two hundred and fifty thousand units. The
22 APC States together manage another two hundred and fifty thousand
units.
· We invite foreign investors together with
local domiciled big construction companies to enter into commercial
housing building to pick up the rest.
· The most frequent public concerns brought to my attention are three-pronged:
1. Severe shortage of housing
2. High rents
3. Unaffordable prices for prospective buyers especially middle and low-income earners.
·
In addition, red tape, corruption and plain public service inefficiency
lead to long delays in obtaining ownership of title documents.
· Again, there are no long term funding sources for mortgage purposes.
These
hurdles are by no means easy to scale, but we must find solutions to
the housing deficit. This Retreat might start by looking at the laws.
· Laws
The
relevant laws should be reviewed to make the process of acquiring
statutory right of occupancy shorter, less cumbersome and less costly.
Court procedures for mortgages cases should make enforcement more
efficient. Ministries of Works and Housing should upgrade their
computerization of title registration system for greater efficiency.
·
Mortgage Institutions. Achieving affordable housing for all Nigerians
will require the development of strong and enduring mortgage
institutions with transparent processes and procedures.
· Mortgage Re-financing Company. This institution when fully operational should ensure adequate support for mortgage financing.
HEALTHCARE
Last
of the four areas that time will allow me to say a few words, but by no
means the least, is healthcare. In my inauguration speech last May, I
remarked that the whole field of Medicare in our country needed
government attention. Dirty hospitals! (Few sights are more upsetting
than a dirty hospital), inadequate equipment, poorly trained nursing
staff, overcrowding. The litany of shortcomings is almost endless.
Sound
health system is part of the prerequisites for economic development.
Nigerians travel abroad, spending an estimated One Billion US Dollars
annually to get medical treatment. Despite huge oil revenues the
nation’s health sector remains undeveloped.
In attacking the challenges of this sector we could start with
·
More funding for health centres to improve service delivery. World Bank
and World Health Organization (WHO) could be persuaded to increase
their assistance.
· Strengthening public health propaganda in primary prevention:
Environmental sanitation
Stop smoking
Better dieting
Exercising
And secondary prevention:
Screening and early diagnosis of diseases
· NAFDAC to intensify efforts on reducing or stopping circulation of fake drugs in Nigeria.
·
Ministry of Health should work closely with the Nigerian Medical
Association to ensure that unqualified people are not allowed to
practice.
Finally I urge participants to learn
from the array of experts and resource persons and learn from the shared
experiences and perspectives to understand how other countries have
transformed their economies and livelihoods of their people for the
better. It is also the government’s expectation that this Retreat will
highlight the respective roles and responsibilities of each tier of
government in adopting and implementing agreed policy initiatives.
I
hope this Retreat will come up with practical, viable solutions and
recommendations as we chart a course for our nation in this turbulent
domestic and international economic environmen
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