Nnanna Anyim-Ude making sense of Policy and Macro Econonic Stability

Nnanna Anyim Ude, is the Chief Operations Officer of Agon Continental Limited. In this interview, the builder relives his experiences at the last World Economic Forum on Africa, with LEO SOBECHI of The Guardian newspapers. He maintained that Nigeria is yet to show signs of seriousness in the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations especially as it concerns shelter; and in other areas too. Excerpts:

Meeting MDG target on shelter:

WITHOUT sounding so overtly pessimistic, we are not on track towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal on shelter, which expects us to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers (all over the world) by 2020. If anything, we are destroying the slums without replacing them with habitable shelter for the most vulnerable in the society.

South Africa has become more radical in addressing that problem and theirs is a more promising outlook. I had said earlier that we have an initiative that we know will make such an impact in Nigeria but we need the partnership of government and development finance institutions to achieve it.

Highpoints of the World Economic Forum on Africa

Referring to is the 18th World Economic Forum on Africa and we had the the presence of four Heads of State - South Africa, Malawi, Burundi and Ghana, and the Prime Minister of Kenya at the opening plenary.

Our president, Yar’Adua was slated to be there too but he pulled out at the last minute. We expected him to be there because he was actually in South Africa for a state visit at the time and we read on the papers that he would participate at that session but his seat was removed just before it began. That session was quite exciting because the discussions among them were primarily on the opportunities available now for Africa to sustain growth. Most of the sessions after that took a similar trend.

One interesting feature of this year’s event was that before the Opening Plenary there was this Africa Economic Brainstorming session and we were presented with a long list of Drivers of Change that will impact the continent the most in the next 12 months to vote on covering the broader areas of political, economic, technological, and others. In the end participants voted for education and skills development, visionary leadership, infrastructure, economic growth and I think food security.

But the interesting thing is that the World Economic Forum had posted these Drivers of Change on their website for the public to vote and interestingly there own results turned in a completely different set of drivers which I’m sure will raise the question of a disconnect between the policymakers and the populace on development priorities but I will rather discuss that later if you raise it.

On rationale for professional builders at the forum

There is a strong link between professionalism and development. The world needs good bankers, good accountants, good economists, good engineers, good doctors, good lawyers and of course good builders to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

For me as a builder, first joining to resolve the housing crisis is my passion. Of man’s three basic needs, only affordable habitable shelter is beyond the reach of the low-income earners of the society. You can organize basic food for yourself if you must stay away from such big man’s food like fried rice, salad and all that stuff but still eat a balanced diet, you can make good clothes for yourself and still not wear Armani, Gucci and the rest of them.

How much does it cost to get basic habitable housing? Take it or leave it, only a trained builder can substantially tackle that. We have come up with a design that will go along way in tackling the problem of low-income housing. So when you put this commitment to join other professionals in taking on issues of development then you can see why a builder is at the World Economic Forum on Africa.

Secondly, our company is active in construction, which is a key industry in any economy and added to all that is that I always look forward to such discourse on environment.

Lessons for Nigeria regarding economic prosperity, stability and global competitiveness during the meeting

New lessons for Nigeria; Well, any new lesson will be that we are not only competing with the West but there is now stiff competition from within and a lot of African countries are doing things right and even though size matters, good policies rise above everything else.

Interacting with other Africans I got the sense of a competitiveness mindset already within the continent. Take a country like Angola for instance, I was discussing with one of their business executives and he told me that they are recording double-digit growth, of course, driven by their oil resources.

Here is the fine point of it, they are guided by the resource curse that has afflicted countries like Nigeria to make sure that growth prosperity coming with it touches the lives of their people across the board. Not to talk of a country like Senegal now described as a huge construction site with massive investments in infrastructure and many huge projects going on simultaneously. So in a sense we have lessons to learn from just across the door.

On energy generation, conservation and distribution

On generation, we need to look other sources of energy more concretely and we need to do more to encourage the private sector to invest in that sector, especially in the brownfield projects. Government also needs to put in more of its own money in greenfield projects especially now that oil prices are on our side. We really need big bang investments in infrastructure and that is the truth. We also need an effective gas masterplan that will take adequate care of power generation infrastructure.

On distribution, we need new technologies in order to expand our distribution capability and network. More advanced power distribution systems are out there and we have to bring them in to address that particular problem. Again the private sector should be encouraged to invest in electricity distribution. The multi-year tariff framework just enacted is a good starting point. We now have to privatize the distribution companies. The process was on during the twilight of the Obasanjo era but it seems suspended too.

The Electric Power Sector Reform Act addresses most of these issues so it should be implemented.

Leadership ascendancy over Nigeria by South Africa hosting WEF?

No, it is wrong to come at it like that. 18 years ago, that was in 1990, the World Economic Forum saw the prospect of South Africa’s re-entry into the international community and knowing the size of the economy it will bring with it and the fears of a possible collapse of such a large economy in a post-apartheid South Africa, they organized a forum to discuss that subject alone. It was basically convened to discuss South Africa in Davos.

Apparently they were encouraged by the success of that event, so another one was convened the next year and I believe it was at that forum that Mandela and then president, W. de Klerk, met for the first time outside of South Africa. After those first two meetings, it was agreed that future events should be on the homeland so to say, and it was also agreed that discussions should be expanded to include other countries in the Southern Africa region probably because of the role they would play in the economy of post-apartheid South Africa and then it was called Southern Africa Economic Summit. If I remember correctly it was still that when Nigeria made her first appearance in 1999 through former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, don’t forget also that all the while we were a pariah state. I also remember that some of those initial Summits were in Durban and another one I recall was held in Windhoek, Namibia; before they decided to bring in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa into the picture and made Cape Town the home of subsequent events.

The World Economic Forum on the Middle East is usually held in the Dead Sea resort in Jordan . However, countries can make a special request. For instance, former President (Joachim) Chissano of Mozambique requested to host it during his last year in office and the event was moved to Maputo for that year; I was expecting President (Olusegun) Obasanjo to do same last year but it didn’t happen. Even this year, the Forum on the Middle East was held in Egypt and not Jordan as has always been the case. This does not take away the fact that in terms of the size of the economy, South Africa has a far bigger economy than Nigeria and there is no debating that in any quarters at all but that is a separate issue.

Judging President Yar’Adua’s seven point agenda and 2020

Well the seven point agenda, if implemented to the letter, can take any country to the top. But my view has always been that we should take on the first things first. If there is one thing Obasanjo achieved during his time it is macroeconomic stability, which should just have a next president to, as one commentator put it, simply read the minutes of the last meeting. I believe the uncertainty that goes with reversal of polices of the last administration and this go-slow business is not good for the long-term stability of the macro economy.

For instance on May 29, the president said that there were plans to make some changes in his administration and nearly two months after that, no news. Is any minister in the key sectors of the economy on his or her way out? What will a new person bring to the table as is always the case? Is the talk of changes dead in the water or is there something to come?

Just look at the health sector, how many months now and no minister yet and we have Millennium Development Goals to achieve in that sector. Foreign and local investors and policy forecasters would like to have answers to these questions so they can shape their decisions or else they will take them somewhere else. And yes, there are countries just across the road waiting to receive them and we will be the loser in the end.

During the World Economic Forum there was this consensus that because we are such a huge market with unlimited potentials, Nigeria is the country that will be. But no one seems to be sure which direction we are heading and which policies will remain and which ones will be upturned. One year of planning may be good but let us remember that other countries are not held back by a stopwatch. When Mrs. (Ngozi) Iweala was redeployed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I wrote an article warning of the dangers of such instability for an economy in transition. I recall that I mentioned about eight African countries whose economies are doing well simply because they had one good Finance minister for an average of seven years. Trevor Manuel in South Africa is doing his tenth year as Finance minister there, the current president of the ADB, (African Development Bank), Donald Kaberuka; was Rwandan Minister of Finance for seven years and we know that Rwanda has not only turned the corner but has remained on the right track. Same with Mozambique whose current Prime Minister was Minister of Finance for 13 years, go and check out how their economy is doing now. I can say the same for Botswana and Ghana .

Another alarm bell is in the area of monetary policy. Who is really calling the shots? Just look at what is happening to interest rates. It does not help us in any way, whatsoever especially in monetary policy if we have what is now perceived as a lame duck CBN simply because people believe that the administration is hell bent on not renewing Soludo’s term. Good policy requires stability. What we needed all the while was to also have good and effective people in the infrastructure sector and in particular, power and transportation. I think we now have someone like that in transportation so we wait for the results. I do not know much about the minister in-charge of the power sector.

It is now a global trend to concession infrastructure assets belonging to the state to private sector concessionaires to finance, develop, maintain and manage them based on concession agreements. That was why I referred earlier to the Minister of Transportation because from her statements and what I know is happening in the ministry, she’s driving the sector in that direction. But there has to be an Infrastructure Concession Regulation Commission to regulate, monitor and supervise the contracts. The Act establishing the Commission was signed into law and, we at the Infrastructure Policy Commission of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, (NESG), has been calling for its establishment.

Fortunately, a few weeks ago government appointed Chief Ernest Shonekan as the Chairman and we hear that members of the board will be announced thereafter. It is a step in the right direction but we also have to move fast on this because by its nature, the infrastructure sector has a longer gestation period and work in that sector can be delayed by the rainy season. So if the government wants to see the fruits before leaving office, then the time to act is now.

SOURCE: Nnanna Anyim-Ude

Rate this:

3.2

Build An eBay Business Without Selling A Thing!