Prince Agba: National Development Plan’s legislative imperative will enhance ease of doing business in Nigeria

INTERVIEW

Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, featured on NTA’s programme, “Good Morning Nigeria” on Friday, January 14, 2022 where he spoke on the conceptualization and implementation of the 12-month Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), which, according to him had technically ended, but which he said had dovetailed into the new National Development Plan (2021-2025), whose preparation was all-inclusive. Agba said this was the first time Nigeria would have a National Development Plan in three volumes, to wit: Volume One, being the Plan itself; Volume Two, comprising prioritized projects that have been costed to know what the funding requirement is; and, more importantly, Volume 3, which is the legislative imperative. The robust conversation was monitored by THE CONCLAVE. Excerpts

Que: The background report by our correspondent was quite elaborate in terms of the numbers arising from the implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan and just as well we are now being reminded about how far the pan has gone in terms of implementation. But what else is the good news about the ESP

Minister: I listened to that briefing a while ago on the sustainability plan and I noticed that the health sector was not really covered which was the primary reason for the Economic Sustainability Plan. Recall that Covid 19 is a health-related issue, which gradually snowballed to becoming an economic pandemic more so even a security pandemic. When Economic Sustainability Plan was set up, there was a team that went round the country and it did show that the health sector was really vulnerable and infrastructure in this sector has greatly dilapidated. So, knowing the fact that Covid was not something that was not really understood by anyone in the world, it was something that was never planned, there was the need first and foremost to save lives because that was the most paramount thing, not only creating job, but also ensuring that we do not lose lives especially when it was said in Europe and America that people were going to be dying on the streets. Secondly, it was an opportunity having seen the state of the health infrastructure to try and upgrade them and build some forms of resilience with our health sector. Recall that before Covid, if anyone was suspected to have Lassa fever anywhere in the country, you would have to take the same to Irrua Specialist Hospital in Edo State but all that has changed. How? Economic Sustainability Plan was an opportunity for us to create 52 molecular labs across the country in the medical tertiary institutions. It means that if you are in Sokoto and there is a suspicion of Lassa fever, you don’t need to take the sample to Irrua, whether you are in Maiduguri, Lagos or Calabar. The sample can be taken to the tertiary hospital in that State. All 36 States are now covered. Only last week, in continuation of my monitoring exercise, I went to NIPRD where they had developed active ingredients for sanitizers. Before now, we imported all the hand sanitisers we were using but with what they had developed, 50 manufacturing outfits in Nigeria are now producing hand sanitisers and these are saving jobs and these are additional jobs of 2.3 million that we talked about that have not been covered. The ICT sector was one area that we really noticed growth because what did Sustainability Plan also did in that area? We had a lot of participants who were trained on installation of VSAT. In my town hall meetings across the country, we found out that these young men and women have even formed themselves into teams and now have WhatsApp groups. Some who now have more than enough to handle pass on jobs to others and they are beginning to employ others. Again, these numbers have not been captured because these are in the informal sector. If we get these entire numbers put together, I believe we have done more than 2.3 million jobs that have been created. These are additional benefits of the Economic Sustainability Plan plus the fact that one key objective of the plan was to make sure that we did not go into deep recession. Some countries in the World, especially advanced countries, are still struggling with recession. We did not want to go into a deep recession or even go into deep depression which is why we had to do that stimulus. We only had two quarters of negative growth, that meant that our recession was not deep and our recovery was u-shaped. So, the objective of the plan itself was met and since then we have seen the GDP go on a positive trajectory and even inflation that few months before Covid was on upward trends and continue for about 17 months is about to nose dive and we are now seeing headline inflation and food inflation come down. Even though, it is a gradual process, we expect that it will continue because moving from 18 point something percent to 15 point something percent is something that is great. So, when you look at these two economic indices, it means that we are going on the right trajectory. I know that the last month inflation rate ought to be released today and we will see what the figures are. But usually, December rates are high year in, year out because of the festivity. Even if it shows that it is high, I am sure that it is going to be marginal, not something really, really high.

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Que: You have reeled out some achievements from the plan and it was meant to cushion the effect of Covid 19 which quickly brought down the economies of the world and it was to also identify fiscal measures of enhancing known oil and unknown oil sector and reduce non-essential spending. With all these that happened, inflation and recession, of course, the price of oil going down until at the point maybe $1 per barrel, how did you get the funding?

Minister: We have different approaches to get the funding. The Economic Sustainability Plan itself was funded in-house. There was no borrowing; we had to look into some of our special accounts and that was where we got the N500 billion that was put into the stimulus; and, the strategic revenue growth initiative where we had to build efficiency into our system also helped a lot. If you look at the indices now in terms of revenue profile, you will find out that dependence on oil has greatly reduced. About 70% of our national revenue is now from non-oil sector and that is why I tell people when you say Nigeria is a mono-dependent country, I will tell you no, (that is not correct), the economy is not diversified; what we are not pursuing is what we called concentric diversification that is within the various sector, diversify them grow our product space and product complexity such that our product will be in demand by other countries. It is by so doing that we will begin to earn foreign exchange. Once you begin to bring in the dollars and pounds, you will see the effect on the exchange rate. But what is happening today is that with Covid-19 intervention in the Agricultural sector where we focused on ensuring reduction of post-harvest losses by creating access to the market, more food is now getting out but we are saying in primary producing commodity which is why the new development Plan is having more focus on integrated rural development where technology and other forms of infrastructure like roads, broadband and, of course, my brother here has a role in that of ensuring that off-grid power is taken to the rural areas to grow all of that economy and attract some business there to begin to produce and improve the value chain and build on the product complexity. Now you produce a tonne of cocoa and you sell it, say about $100 to the Europeans, they turn it into chocolate and bring it back to us and sell it for $1,000 per tonne. So, it is a net loss of $900 to us. All the hard work is done here in producing it. So, these are the new focus areas because the Economic Sustainability Plan itself has now dovetailed into the Medium-Term National Development Plan (2021-2025). So, you can see the linkages and how revenue profile ought to grow and it is growing.

Que: How would you react to the views of the skeptics about the numbers concerning the jobs that have been retained or created as a result of the implementation of ESP

Minister: We have one organization that comes out with the data as they are and based on these data, government responds in terms of policy and programmes. The organisation which is the National Bureau of Statistics reels out statistics that are negative, like negative GDP, these same skeptics you talked about applaud and clap their hands and say oh yes, they are not doing well. But when NBS comes out to say these numbers are now on the positive trajectory, then it becomes a problem. I think they are just out to distort the fact, politicizing things and for us, what is important is that you are the one that is driving, you can see the potholes on the road and you decide the path to take because the best footballer is the one sitting in his bedroom watching on the screen, just like the best driver is the passenger that is in there. I think Nigerians should be more patriotic, when something good has been done, they need to applaud it and encourage those doing it, and if it is indeed not so okay, it is also good to say so. But if you are constantly known to say that things are bad, nobody will take you seriously because you are always shouting wolf when there is none. So, we cannot know for sure when you are saying the truth.

Que: In December, you were reported to have been dissatisfied with the alleged misuse of N950 million Covid-19 fund to university of Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Can you give us an update on that? What about other teaching hospitals across the country, are you satisfied with the way they have been able to manage the funds and run the Covid-19 facilities?

Minister: Again, this is one area that I have issues with Nigerian journalists because prior to go to Port-Harcourt, I had visited 9 other teaching hospitals across the country where I did say the facilities I saw were world-class and these were not reported widely. I went to Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital; there were three centers that I inspected: the molecular lab, the ICU where I was largely satisfied. It was at the Isolation Center that I did not see any equipment. As far as I was concerned, there was no intervention fund spent in the isolation center but they have spoken gloriously about the fact that they had built another isolation center and it was word-class but what drew the red flag was that when I got to the center, they just pointed to the building, showed me the signpost showing Isolation Center/Treatment Center. I had to go inside because I didn’t come to look at the building, I came to see the equipment. It would be foolish or stupid of me to fly all the way from Abuja and get to Port-Harcourt only to see a signboard. I insisted on going in and I was told it was a red zone. Of course, I know isolation centers are red zones especially when you have patients in them, going from the fact that I had visited 9 other centers with patients even in the heat of Covid and I was taken in, all I needed to do was wear the right personal protective equipment. So, I asked to be given the personal protective equipment so I could go in and then the keys were not found for me to go in. I had to tell them I would postpone my return date even if it meant staying for 2 days and then I went to look at other items. Eventually, they told me the keys had been found and I went in and I saw beds that were probably manufactured in 1925 in the place, the mattresses that were there were so dirty and I was told it is the Port-Harcourt soot (that affected them). I wondered why the hotel I stayed in Port-Harcourt was not affected by soot and it also did not affect the molecular lab in the same place, neither did it affect the beds in the ICU. There was no single equipment.

Que: How did you feel?

Minister: I felt bad because if you saw the video, you could see the frustration in me because we have a president who is really concerned about the plight of the people, a president who has a large heart and magnanimously enough to approve that we spend this money to upgrade our facilities. When Nigerians don’t see these facilities, what they believe is that the President did not approve or was not concerned and that really got me worried because the intention of the government is not getting to the people. If you go to the Federal Medical Centers in Ebute-Meta or Abuja, you will see the kind of facilities that have been put there. If you go to Kano University Teaching Hospital, you will be impressed with the molecular lab that you see. A lot of investment had been made that Nigerians should be proud of and we no longer need to use our hard-earned foreign exchange to travel out in getting medicare. There is a first-class cancer center that has been built in the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital that you don’t really need to travel abroad. What you are to spend is about $30,000 if you travel to Dubai; you will spend about N2 million here in LUTH. These are things that are there and have been approved by Mr. President. That is why I really felt bad about PH and, of course, the agencies concerned – ICPC and EFCC- have requested for documentations and we have provided. Mine is not to say that the money was well used or not; mine is to say what I saw or what I didn’t see. I had seen some other press conferences that were held by the institution’s head to the effect that there was a communication gap and that the equipment were moved out of the isolation center that was coming and that they needed to fumigate the place that if I come back again, I would see the items.

Que: Some of the basic needs of human are food, clothing and shelter and the programme is as much as possible trying to address the deficiency in our housing schemes in this country. What are the components of the programme when it comes to housing and what are the yardsticks would-be beneficiaries would have to use to get access to these houses?

Minister: This is not the area I have so much details about but what I do know, because this is being handled by the Ministry of Works and Housing, what the programme has been designed for is to have houses that are low cost so that they can easily be accessed by Nigerians, build something that is within 2-3 million naira threshold and because they have been built in large quantities, a lot of equipment or materials to be used are bought in large quantity and so there is comparative advantage you have in the pricing. The whole idea is to ensure that things are done manually so that hands would be employed, tools and local materials are used, aggregate and all that, even in terms of roads that were done, aggregate to ensure that materials are sourced locally is what these programmes are about. Again, the whole idea was to retain jobs, even if we are not able to create, don’t let us lose jobs but where we have been able to retain jobs, create additional jobs and that is what all of these programmes were all about. I wanted to add something on what Tola was saying. I know we have warehouses across the country in the 36 States that were full of materials that we off took from MSMEs. Recently at the last meeting of the Sustainability Committee, we found that some States are not meeting up and just for equity purposes, we are trying to reach back to the 3 or 4 States where we have not had a lot of participants because we do not want to favour one State over and above others. Again, these interventions require that you apply for them, like the MSME survival fund, I know of someone in Edo who had contacted me that 3 of her staff members refused to come to work after receiving the first set of monies that were paid and she felt that we needed to tweak the programme a little more. What was important to me was the fact that it was actually getting to Nigerians. For an employer to complain that the staff members had disappeared because they were getting the money. From the town hall meetings that I attended, it was both in Kano and Lagos, some participants had multiple benefits from different interventions. In Lagos, I asked the man, how come you had three benefits from three different programmes? Who did you know? He said he was at home doing nothing; the country was on lock down and he had a laptop and data, so, he just went and applied for everything and received responses and got the interventions. He said he told his friends, and that they didn’t believe him but that one of them applied and he also got. He said that his friend was there with me. What occurred to me is that there was some form of transparency in the way and manner that it was done and it also throws up a challenge; it means we are reaching fewer Nigerians. If one person can have three benefits and there are a lot more Nigerians who have got nothing. This was brought to the fore when we were giving our report and His Excellency the Vice President has now called for the aggregation of data between and among the different MDAs. There is a team being led by the Honourable Minister of Communication to find a way to bring these data together and to ensure there is visibility in various MDAs so that if one person is benefiting from a programme, then he cannot benefit from another. That way, we are able to reach more Nigerians.

Ques: What are the brackets around the ESP, in other words start date; end date, what are the milestones the government decides to achieve, or is it open-ended?

Minister: It is not open-ended. The ESP was designed as an intermediary plan between Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and the National Development Plan 2021-2025. So, it was a 12-month plan and of these 12 months, N500 billion of this stimulus like I said was within the budget and the budget had a circle of one year. There has been an extension till the end of March. However, the other intervention programmes which are through the financial institutions continue to run. Of course, we now have a national development plan where some of these programmes are also embedded. It is something that will continue to run. It is not just a race where you say it is 100 meters and you stop; it is actually a marathon because you continue to run. Like we are talking about rural development in terms of the new national development plan flowing from the economic sustainability plan is now integrated rural development where you are taking rural development away from Agriculture because when you just see it as an agriculture-related thing, more attention is not given to it. But now, you want to take infrastructure to the rural areas not just because you want to create access to the market for the farmers but because you also want to solve the problem of rural-urban migration and when you look at it from that perspective, you are also solving the issue of urban area. One, the issue of urban slum and the issue of insecurity in the urban areas because when these youths move from rural to urban area, of course they don’t have the resources to stay in a central business area, they go and stay in the slum and with time they get into drugs and the need to survive; when every other human being is working during the day, they are sleeping and at night when other are sleeping, they go to work. And that is why we are pushing agencies like REA to take off grid power to the rural areas. We are pushing agencies like Ministry of Works, Agriculture to create rural roads and the Ministry of Communication to take broadband Technology to these rural areas and you know what that will do; it has correlation with our population growth. I am sure you would say how? Right now, in the rural areas, the only form of entertainment leads to procreation when there is nothing to do. But when you take broadband there; there is electricity; they begin to watch TVs which take some of their time. The youth can go to Netflix; by the time they watch movies, they are tired and they sleep. But now, when there is no moon and there is nothing to do, at 7, 8pm when everywhere is dark, the next thing you see are pregnancies and the population keeps increasing.

Que: Most people in the rural areas or in the States sometimes claim they are not aware of plans like this, that they only hear it on the news. What kind of synergy are you having with the State governments to ensure that this plan reaches the target State people that are supposed to benefit from it?

Minister: First, with the Economic Sustainability Plan, we are always engaging with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum; so, the Governors were carried along. With the National Development Plan, we went a lot further because we realized it should not be a Federal Government Plan more so when implementation is mostly in the sub-national level where the rubber hit the road. So, in the governance structure that Mr President approved, he made sure that the State and Local Governments were involved. So, we had 26 technical working groups and each of the State had to send in 2 representatives so that it is not Federal Government planning for the States. The States were involved. The Association of Local Government which is 774 and if you want to bring onboard 774, it will be too much; they nominated 2 each to be in these 26 technical groups. The plan structure is for the private sector to drive the economy and government to facilitate and create the enabling environment and that is why on purpose while this plan was being developed, we had more people from the private sector, a lot more youths because the plan is for the youth, the future, gender issues were taking care of, the physically challenged were also brought in because nobody must be left behind. The plan itself was chaired by Atedo Peterson from organized private sector and where we had manufacturers Association of Nigeria; we had NACCIMA, SMEDAN, Nigeria Economic Summit Group; we had the Nigeria Economic Society. The role of government here was to take care of the logistics that was required, provide the necessary data that we have. You had my sister, the Honourable Minister of Finance as the co-chair so that there was linkage between the team developing and also the Government. The MDAs in infrastructure areas had to be represented. Today, if you look at Nigeria’s GDP, 92% of it is organized private sector. So, the President felt that the individual or the segment bringing 8% should not be the one developing the plan; the private sector should lead and also to ensure that the plan goes beyond the President. That the plan is not seen as APC plan, he sent invitations to two other political parties in the National Assembly other than the APC, those that are in the Senate, so there were invitations sent to PDP, APGA and the APC Chair to participate in the creation of the plan. This is just to ensure that there is a continuity with the plan. Since we are talking about the plan, let me just say two things that were different. This is the first time we are having a plan with three volumes. Volume 1, which is the plan itself; Volume 2, comprises prioritized projects that have been costed so we know what the funding requirement is; and, more importantly, Volume 3, which is the legislative imperative. You want private sector to drive, what are the things impeding private sector to fly? You want them to run and you tied a rope on their leg with your laws or policies. So, we looked at all those, although that volume remains with government. It is left for the government to begin to work on those laws with a view to ensuring that there is ease of doing business.