A few days ago, President Goodluck Jonathan set up a
committee including ministers and representatives of the
private sector and charged it with creating three million
jobs. There was no timeframe attached to the mandate of
job creation. A set of reactions went through my mind as I
read about the committee and what it was tasked to do.
The first centred on the idea of job creation itself. It seems
at last that the President is touching base with the reality
of the unemployment situation as against the magical
numbers churned out by the National Bureau of Statistics
that insults our sense of propriety. But wait a minute, did
the President just come to terms with this reality of
unemployment in the country after four years? This implies
that he has been out of touch with the lived experiences of
ordinary Nigerians who constitute the majority of the
population he leads. The second reaction was a voice that
said that this is the politics of 2015 emerging in another
form so as to be seen to care for the unemployed. The
sound bites are nice to the ears, captivating for the
unemployed and a brilliant idea to patriotic Nigerians.
Then, the third reaction is that of giving the President the
benefit of doubt and seeking to make contributions to the
process of job creation in a comatose economy.
But the fourth reaction is that job creation is not a task to
be given like marching orders to a committee to simply
conjure three million jobs. Rather, job creation is a product
of a multiplicity of policies and their implementation across
board. It is a multi-sectoral challenge that simply needs the
alignment of so many policies and faithfully mainstreaming
the employment agenda in their implementation. Creating
jobs will demand action in areas such as education, health,
housing, land, national values and ethics, trade and
industry, innovation, anti-corruption, budget systems and
process including public procurement, etc. Job creation is
like poverty. The idea of setting up a special poverty
reduction unit, as enticing as it sounds, has never
scratched the surface of poverty. Poverty reduction
requires action across so many sectors.
Further, the composition of the committee is just about the
same persons who have been running the economy
without success sprinkled with private sector operators
who have been in the corridors of power for so long and
few new faces. The poser is; what will be new from the
majority of the members of the committee that they have
not contributed already? Is there any member of the
committee who has out-of-the-box innovative ideas to
contribute beyond the old worn platitudes that will lead us
nowhere and the continuation of the recycling of imported
and failed ideas? Do we need more of the same ideas or do
we need new ideas to create jobs and empower the
millions of Nigerians who are dreaming of a day that we will
have imaginative and transparent leadership? The answer
is obvious; Nigerians want to hear a new song, new
workable ideas and not stale theories that have led us
nowhere.
A few suggestions will be relevant for this committee and
the President that set it up. The first is to ask for little
sacrifice, a little accommodation and empathy for fellow
Nigerians if this is to work. Starting from the 2015 federal
budget, let the President, National Assembly and other
political office holders cut down the fat from their bloated
perks of office. This will save a few hundreds of billions
which can be directed to regenerative capital expenditure
programmed through a good procurement process to
capital projects that will employ labour. As soon as the new
auto policy fully kicks in, let the leadership auction off all
imported cars and limousines that are part of their fleet
and insist on driving Nigerian made cars and vehicles. In
other spheres of life, let the leadership patronise Nigerian
products as a mark of honour. They will not only save
funds for the economy, they will be leading by example
and this will send a powerful message that to be politically
correct means buying and patronising Nigerian made
products. The procurement policy that encourages giving
first consideration to Nigerian made goods and services
should be implemented to the letter because it has been
gathering dust on the shelves. The local content policy
should also be ramped up in all major sectors of the
economy if we are desirous of creating jobs.
For the ministries in charge of land and housing,
commoditising land acquired virtually free or after payment
of minimal compensation by governments across the
federation cannot create jobs or incentivise construction.
Also, in places like Abuja, by the time corruption is
removed from the sector, hundreds of thousands of
construction jobs will be created. Available information
indicates that fees payable to government for allocation of
plots in Abuja hardly exceed N250,000. But who can get a
plot of land at the official fee if he is not well connected
either in political circles or in the bureaucracy? Tens of
millions of naira are required to acquire a plot of land –
more than enough to build a moderate house if the land
was available at the official fee. Without access to land,
construction and housing jobs are imperiled.
For the Central Bank of Nigeria which is part of the
committee, the idea of double digit lending rates, official
perennial liquidity creation as an excuse for perennial
inflation targeting, cannot lead to job creation. We will
perpetually be exporting jobs through imports under this
monetary policy. The refusal of the CBN to try alternative
ideas stated in Vision 20:2020 have contributed to the high
unemployment rate. To boost the value of the naira against
major international currencies and curtail excess liquidity
may require the avoidance of the creation of new money.
This would imply the direct allocation of foreign exchange
(using dollar certificates) earned from oil to the three tiers
of government rather than monetising it. This is the
recommendation of Vision 20:2020 which has since been
ignored by monetary and fiscal policy.
It is amazing that we want to create jobs when we have an
official policy that has refused to invest in refining crude oil
at home so that we save funds used to import refined
petroleum. A reasonable person would have thought that
savings from the SURE-P would to a great extent go into
increasing local refining capacity. This would have created
thousands of jobs in the economy. The idea of exporting
crude oil and importing refined petroleum also makes the
job creation agenda laughable. Are we saying we do not
have the presence of mind to add value to raw
commodities before export? Enter the National Assembly
that has sat on the Petroleum Industry Bill for over seven
years; a bill which would have liberalised the sector,
created new jobs and earned more money for the federal
and state treasuries. Yet, our “distinguished” and
“honourable” members do not think the bill should be
passed into law because of primordial considerations.
Interventions in education, health, trade and industrial
policy will also come in handy if we want to create jobs.
This discourse just scratched the surface; a new way of
doing things is required to create jobs in Nigeria.
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/jonathans-presidential-committee-on-job-creation/