In this second year of President Tinubu’s government, mouthwatering policies are being thrown in to arrest decline in citizens’ living standards, such as the proposed tax-free window to import food, pharmaceuticals, industrial raw materials and others. There are also mass awards of road contracts. If significantly implemented within one year, there could be dramatic changes in the polity and how citizens perceive this government.
Implementation is first about funding. So far, pronouncements of government seem designed toexcite the ears. If we recollect, the President’s assuring national address of August 1, 2023, promised to rescue the economy from “a tiny elite, the elite of the elite” that have held the country hostage for many years. One year after, we didn’t see the elite crumbling. They are even more powerful now in the petroleum sector.
This government must mean what it says and follow through with execution. Nigerians are keeping record. President Tinubu talked about a group that had, “amassed so much wealth and power that they became a serious threat to the fairness of our economy and the integrity of our democratic governance. To be blunt, Nigeria could never become the society it was intended to be as long as such small, powerful yet unelected groups hold enormous influence over our political economy and the institutions that govern it.” There’s no drop of economic fairness in the last one year. If anything, Nigerians are more pauperised.
We recall that President Tinubu announced that government was to spend N75 billion to strengthen the manufacturing sector between July 2023 and March 2024. The objective, he proclaimed, was to “fund 75 enterprises with great potential to kick-start a sustainable economic growth, accelerate structural transformation and improve productivity.”
The intervening months were the most harrowing for manufacturers. Some closed shop under unrelenting pressure of multiple taxation, frustrating forex exchange and generally unfriendly business environment. Whereas Tinubu promised that the N75 billion intervention fund for manufacturing will be offered at 9 per cent per annum with maximum of 60 months repayment for long term loans and 12 months for working capital, manufacturers continued to reel under the Central Bank’s 26.25 MPR.
There seems a misalignment between what the President promised and what CBN offers. The same promise was made for SMSEs and Nano businesses. Who benefitted from the N75 billion fund? When we narrow to agriculture, the contrast between what was promised and the reality of today’s high cost of food is troubling.Was the promise only on paper? In that regard, Tinubu promised last August to ensure that prices of food items remain affordable, assuring that multi-stakeholder engagement with various farmers’ associations and operators within the agriculture value chain had taken place.
The outcome was that “in the short and immediate terms, we will ensure staple foods are available and affordable. To this end, I have ordered the release of 200,000 Metric Tonnes of grains from strategic reserves to households across the 36 states and the FCT to moderate prices.” Yes, we saw pyramids of palliative grains, however, prices have remained high.
The plan to cultivate 500,000 hectares of farmland and ensure all-year round farming practice was announced. To achieve that, N200 billion was to be disbursed to cultivate 150,000 hectares of rice and maize and 100,000 hectares of wheat and cassava.
In the intervening months, food inflation continued on a disturbing leap, leading to food riots in Niger, Kano and mildly in other states in February 2024. Those were clear signs that the August 2023 promises of Mr. President did not record an immediate impact seven months after.
In response, government summoned a Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Intervention. Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, who conveyed the details said government was very concerned about accessibility and affordability of food and was taking action on relief measures. Some of the measure, he said, “will involve unlocking the foods that are available in most storage facilities (National Food Reserves) around the country. The government is also talking to major millers and major commodity traders to also see what is available in their stores.”
Another round of promises that did not significantly impact food inflation, which had stabilisedat over 40 per cent as at June/July. On June 12, President Tinubu mounted the soap-box again, with another beautiful sermon on 25 years of unbroken democracy. He promised to steer the economy away from over-dependence on oil. He said: “Our economy has been in desperate need of reform for decades. It has been unbalanced because it was built on the flawed foundation of over-reliance on revenues from oil.” True. And what has this government done in one year to correct that imbalance? We’re where we were. Fuel queues and more instability.
We haven’t diversified. We’re unable to feed ourselves, yet we are so endowed. Smaller countries in Africa are making a fortune from cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm oil, banana and other cash produce, where we used to be number one. State governors have abandoned farming for cheap rents and taxes collected in city centres.
Water resources that were cultivated by past administrations to enhance all-year-round farming have been abandoned. The only time dams are mentioned in the media is when they collapse and captured water overrun communities, where peasant farmers are made to lose their crops.
In his New Year message to Nigerians, the President said his government will cultivate 500,000 hectares of farmland to grow major staple crops across the country. He announced that his government had launched dry season farming with 120,000 hectares of land in Jigawa State in November 2023 under “our National Wheat Development Programme.” When is the harvest Mr. President?
Let government be told that what they sow is what they will reap. If you did not sow seed during planting season but you go about making empty pronouncements, you’re going to reap hunger. It is not the responsibility of the Federal Government alone. States should in fact, take the lead while the Federal Government focus on policy.
In this second year, the emphasis by government should be on actual release of funds, effective monitoring and how they’re utilised. There are timelines for crops to mature for harvest, it doesn’t take two terms of eight years. Media and civil societies should be involved.
The Executive Order signed by the President in June to boost local production of healthcare and pharmaceuticals is another promise whose impact should be felt in the next six months.
According to the Health Minister, Muhammad Pate, “specified items contained in the new Executive Order include Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), excipients, other essential raw materials required for manufacturing of crucial health products like drugs, syringes and needles, long-lasting insecticidal nets and rapid diagnostic kits, among others.”
A very good one. But it is not enough to sign an order without a conscious will to enforce, monitor and ensure delivery. After all, President Buhari once signed an Executive Order to compel allocation of funds directly to local government councils from the Federation Account. That did not work, precisely why this government had to go to the Supreme Court over financial autonomy for councils.
So, freeing healthcare products including pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, syringes and others from tariffs and taxes could boost local production and capacity. The major drain on the economy has been over-dependence on importation, thus weakening the naira in the FX market. The exit of pharmaceutical giants, the likes of GlaxoSmithkline (GSK) and Sanofi mounted pressure on costs of medications in the past few months. High cost of healthcare amid other afflictions of this government can’t be tolerated in 2025. Let government not frustrate itself with immoral lust for taxes.
Not satisfied with just an Executive Order, drug makers are asking for clear timelines for its implementation. They also want government to address the fluctuating value of the naira to enable them firm up investment plans. A member of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN), Patrick Ajah said, “nobody has engaged us on the process. Let me be honest, if the government does not ensure implementation of this, it can turn around to be negative. Many companies are waiting for the implementation.”
There were media reports that the Federal Government had approved massive duty-free importation of rice, wheat, beans and others; to cushion cost-of-living crisis it engineered through unwholesome policies. This 150-day duty-free import window was projected to crash food prices by January. Others reported a price regulation would accompany the exercise. It was announced that in addition to what the private sector imports, government was to import 250,000 MT of wheat and 250,000 MT of maize, etc.
As it turned out, this proposed intervention had not been properly defined by government before it was hurriedly sent out. While they continue to panel-beat the process, let it be said that food importation has its downside, particularly regarding impact on local production and the struggling naira. If it is intended on backward integration to benefit local farmers, it has to be properly anchored to avoid pitfalls that frustrated previous efforts. Remember, licenses were given to rice farmers under previous governments to import a fraction of paddy rice to augment local production. It was abused.
There were televised rice pyramids in the days of former President Jonathan. Similar efforts were exaggerated under Buhari, to mean local proficiency in local rice production. Under Buhari, it was propagated that Nigeria had achieved local sufficiency in rice production as well as for export. But as soon as Buhari left office, the rice pyramids disappeared.
It turned out that of the over N283,01 billion disbursed as loans to rice farmers by the Central Bank under Buhari’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), only 52 per cent of it was recovered.
This second year, let this government feed Nigerians with real food, not promises!
The post We can’t feed the nation on propaganda appeared first on Guardian Nigeria News.