Economic Sustainability Plan was to keep people alive, create and retain jobs, and ensure states’ survival-Agba

Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, undertook a review of the 12-month Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), including some of the projects and programmes under the plan on Arise TV’s programme, “NEWSDAY”. Agba, who was a member of the Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC), chaired by Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, spoke on the impact of the ESP that has technically ended and other ancillary issues. Excerpts of the interview, monitored by THE CONCLAVE, are reproduced hereunder

Question: Let us get your take and assessment regarding this report. What is your initial reactions?

Minister: Thank you very much first and foremost for having me this afternoon. In order to react to how successful or unsuccessful the plan has been. It is good for Nigerians to have the perspective of what we went through. You will recall that the 2020 budget was approved by Mr President on December 17, 2019 and shortly after implementation started on 1st of January, the pandemic came upon the world. So, it first started as health pandemic, a pandemic that no one really knew the nature of; no one had any knowledge of and so the whole world was put into confusion. At some point, it was stated in Africa that people were going to be dying on the streets. This really concerned the government and that was why the economic sustainability committee was set up headed by His Excellency, he Vice-president. The first thing was to ensure how to keep people alive, that we do not have lives lost as it had been predicted. Secondly, the supply chains around the world were shut down, and especially our main source of foreign exchange was affected, that was crude oil because of excess supply in the market. With all the economies shut down, the demand for oil was low; in fact, in April, oil price went down as low as $12 per barrel; that meant a substantial part of the revenues we were expecting had disappeared, and when economic activities are not going, of course companies will not make profit. It also means that the taxes that would come would also disappear and because earnings would not be made this period, it meant that States themselves would have serious issues in paying salaries and meeting up with their obligations; the same thing was with the Federal Government. And so, when the presidential task force went round the country to visit the federal tertiary institutions, what they saw in terms of infrastructure was appalling. So, the directive we got from his Excellency, the Vice-president was to focus on how to come up with plans and programmes that would ensure that we keep people alive. Secondly, because businesses were being shut down; we had to come up with programmes to make sure that we retain jobs and also to create more jobs and the States’ survival was also crucial. We had to look for ways and means of keeping the States going and also taking care of the various vulnerabilities that we had in the system and also how to build resilience in the health sector and to ensure some forms of food security. Those are the things that we were expected to do. So, one of the things we did was to provide support to the States. First and foremost, the States were having deductions from FAAC because of the budget support and the bailout funds that they had received. So, one of the programmes put in place was to suspend the FAAC deductions. In addition to that, all the States were giving a N1 billion to support the them towards the setting up of isolation centres and other items related to COVID-19. Also on the health side, we had to take away the tariffs from all health-related equipment that were being brought into the country; we provided a billion-naira support to the pharmaceutical industry at this time. All of these were to ensure survival of the States. There was also a programme around Agriculture. The low-hanging fruit here was the construction of rural roads and this was to serve two purposes; one, is to make sure that food actually gets to the market and prevent post-harvest losses that was taking place and the other was to ensure food security, keeping and getting food to the people and, also a way of stimulating the economy because resources were being deployed to that area.

Advertisement

▪︎ Road Infrastructure

In the area of road infrastructure, a lot of roads were rehabilitated across the country, at least 3,707kms of roads because the focus here is how to keep jobs, how to create more jobs and the whole idea was to use local materials to achieve this, like bitumen, aggregate and all of it that is required and sum of about N60b was put into this, also for repairs of bridges across the country. From the rural roads, 495km of rural roads across 366 communities were constructed.

▪︎ Health Sector

In the health sector, we had to provide funding to NCDC, NAFDAC, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Development and also funding for 52 health institutions. These 52 health institutions were to focus on four main areas. These areas are one, having molecular labs because at this time, it was difficult to run some of these tests and that time, we only have about three and a half molecular labs in the country. Now, with the addition of 52 molecular labs that have been built, we now have the capability to do diagnostics for all forms of ailments. No longer do we have to take samples to abroad or taking it from maybe Sokoto, Maiduguri, Lagos or Port-Harcourt or to Irrua Specialist Hospital just to find out if one has Lassa fever. The other one is that at this time, a lot of people had to be isolated and we had few isolated facilities across the country. So, funding was also provided for these 52 health institutions to build isolation labs and equip them. We also have to prepare for the worse, intensive care units, at least 10 bedded were also provided and because of the nature of the ailment was not fully understood, it was critical that the frontline medical personnel were protected. So, we made some provisions for personal protected equipment and at some point, additional provisions were made to get oxygen across the various hospitals.

▪︎ Impact of Economic Sustainability Plan

So, in terms of assessing the impact of the sustainability plan, did the States actually survive this period and were they able to meet up with their obligations? Yes, they did. Were they able to set up isolation centers on their own? Yes, they did with the funding that they were given. Lagos State had a little more because it was a major epicenter for this disease. When you look at the various 52 hospitals, world-class facilities have been sent up and I have been going round the country, visiting these facilities and also monitoring the reconstruction of roads going on by the FERMA and also the rural roads that have been done by the Ministry of Agric. Only yesterday (Thursday, January 12, 2022), I paid a visit to the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development and I was really impressed. You know that in the heat of Covid, we were importing sanitizers. This research institute was able to develop the active ingredients for the production of this sanitizers and they had shared this with about 50 manufacturers in the country and we are now producing this in the country and no longer importing them. We have also gotten the equipment for sequencing.

Question: (Cuts in…) Mr Agba, I can see that the ESP has been very busy and we appreciate that, but I will like us to focus on the aspect of job creation. Can you tell us about the nature of jobs that have been created and the impact on the standard of living of the average Nigeria?

Minister: I will speak on the aspect of job creation but recall that the main objective was, first, to keep people alive and ensure a form of food security. In terms of job creation, the programme itself created about 2.1 million jobs during the period that is under review from the programmes that was set up by the economic sustainability plan and I will say that in itself was very impactful and when you now begin to add from all other programmes that we had in the budget, with the jobs that were created by the States, then, it is going to be a lot more than the 2.1 million jobs that were received from the data we collected from the programme itself. In my visitation to the various States and town hall meetings that I had especially in Kano and in Lagos, some of the recipients in the areas of ICT and VSAT Installation spoke about how they have set up WhatsApp Group where they now begin to work together. Some of them are beginning to others and train them. Those of them they had been employed through this other process, the indirect jobs are not part of the 2.1 million jobs that I have spoken about. All in all, if we put it together, I think it is really well over the 2.1 million direct jobs from the programme that have been reported.

Question: What are possible impediments to a greater number of Nigerians not being able to access the benefit of this programmes?

Minister: There was a total stimulus package of about N2.3 trillion. Of this, only 500billion came from special account on the budget and the other N1.8 trillion was expected to come in through the financial system based on the negotiations we had with the CBN to have low interest rates which were at 5% and also to reduce the conditionalities for the assessment of these loans. In terms of the N500billion, because the funds were available and we really didn’t have an issue with it but the intervention that had come through the financial system, that is where we had a lot more challenges but the CBN and the various MDAs are still looking into this on how to make this easier for Nigerians. You know that these are not grants that had to be given, they are loans and the banking system had to ensure that system are put in place to be able to recoup with has been giving out. A lot of people see this as dash and that is why we have had those challenges.

Question: You gave quite an overview of what the programmes are all about, you gave us quite a number of statistics in terms of how well the programmes are doing but I wanted to gauge your thoughts, how you would react to critics who would say that those figures do not necessarily reflect reality

Minister: You know that there would always be critics. When you are driving and you have passengers in the car, the best driver is always the passenger because he would say you should have done it this way or that way. It is not a secret that we went into a recession and that it was short-lived and only for two quarters and since then, our GDP performance has improved. It is not on the positive trajectory. It is also not a secret that just because the pandemic, for about 17 months during the pandemic, both headline and food inflation was on the upward trajectory and these so-called critics did not carry the microphone and talk about this but with the sustainability plan and the impact on the economy, GDP rates are beginning to improve and inflation also has been trending down since April 2021. When it is positive news, they don’t agree or recognize it. It is the same system the NBS that comes up with the statistics that are negative that also comes up with statistics that are negative as government, what we are interested in is the real data because it is the data that enable us to take the right decisions or to review the decisions that have been taking when they are not impactful. I am not surprised that these critics would speak like this may be they have forgotten how the situation was in early 2020 when nobody understood what was going on, when everybody was afraid, thinking that everyone would die. Even the frontline personnel when they want to take your samples, you saw how they dressed up as if they were going to the moon. The situations are different because they no longer do that and it is so because of the decisions that have been taken, the programmes that have been run and the protocols that have been set up by government.

Question: In terms of preparing for the worse, it seems this economic sustainability scheme is quite impressive but I want to jump into the future, we know that subsidy is going to be removed and we do know that despite all of these programmes the life for the average Nigerians is a little bit hard still. I am wondering if such programmes are going to be implemented for when that subsidy does get removed as we know things will hit everyone a little tighter in the pocket.

Minister: Absolutely, there is national poverty reduction with growth strategy programme that had been set up by His Excellency, the President. This is being chaired by His Excellency, the Vice President. Some of these programmes are being reviewed with a view to improving them and making them more sustainable. Like you know, the ESP was also an intermediate plan; we now have the national development plan 2021-2025 which also captures a lot of these issues. Definitely going forward, this will be looked at and I know that His Excellency, the Vice President has also called for a meeting of the steering committee for next week. The steering committee for the national poverty reduction with growth strategy where we will be looking a little more at these issues.

Question: Several States of the federation have received from this survival fund as you have earlier noted but I am more curious about how these funds are being utilized so that we do not have a repeat of what happened with the Covid-19 palliatives that were hoarded and looted. What mechanisms have been put in place to make sure that these funds are actually, rightly utilized and are not diverted into private pocket.

Minister: The survival fund is actually being handled by the Ministry of Trade and Investment, not directly by the States. So, they are working with the States. The individuals from the States are expected to apply and like I did say a few minutes ago that in going round in my town hall meeting, I met a whole lot of participants who knew nobody but applied though the system just like every other person would and a lot of recipients all over the country. The only thing we had noticed and this was discussed last week when we had the sustainability plan is that a couple of recipients had multiple programmes. Again, we are trying to bring together the data from various MDAs. These are people who had confidence in the system and applied for different programmes. We also saw it as a way of saying that there is transparency in what is being done and that there is no interference because if an individual is able to get 2 or 3 interventions from three MDAs that were not working together, it means that the system is working. However, we are aggregating the system to ensure that we are able to reach much more Nigerians. The palliative was a lesson and so we use a different approach for the survival funds.

Question: What can the government do differently to sell some of these programmes and plans to Nigerians?

Minister: I will even like to put it in a different way the question that you have asked to say that Nigerians should show more interest and trust and belief in what is being done. When the Hon. Minister of State for Trade and Investment made her report last week, we still had a couple of States where we have not had a sizable number of people applying and we are trying to ensure there is equity among the States that some States are not benefitting to the disadvantage of others. The facilities are there. Nigerians should have trust and belief in the system and they will get them if they qualify.