President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday
chided critics of his administration, saying most of their assessments of his
stewardship to the nation were hurriedly done without criteria and laid-down
standards.
He spoke during the presentation of his
mid-term performance scorecard in Abuja, an occasion during which, according to
critics, ministers reeled out statistics that had no relationship with reality.
The president, however, noted that the
idea was to formally present a document to all Nigerians about the activities
of government in the past two years, appealing to his critics to be fair and
just in assessing him.
“On Monday, I looked through one
of our dailies that assessed the performances of the ministries. The first
thing I looked for but I didn’t see was the criteria that were used to assess
the performance of the ministers. I know that for you to mark a student, you
must have a marking scheme because assessment could be very subjective.
If a politician is assessing a fellow
politician, you assess the person based on the heart beat,” he stated. “I plead
with all of us especially those who want to assess and write about it to
develop criteria because without a marking scheme, you cannot mark any
student’s paper. Two years of a government -- this is what we have done,
develop your marking scheme and score us. “I also noticed that some
ministries-- National Planning was given average, Trade and Investment was
given average. From 2007, I have worked with two ministers of national planning
and two ministers of trade and investment; they have never done what has been
done today.”
Neither President Jonathan nor any other
speaker could confirm that the government had spent N700billion on security
alone between January and April this year and where the money came from. The
speakers were also silent on the actual unemployment and poverty rates in the
country.
The president said: “In spite of
security challenges, there is so much interest of businessmen wanting to come
to Nigeria. Before now, that [national planning] ministry was almost like a
dead end. Until Shamsudeen came on board, we didn’t even know that we had a
planning ministry. But these two ministries are scored average; I asked, what
are the criteria used?
“Today we are marking the end of
the first 24 months, which is our mid-term review, and my duty is to formally
present a document that all Nigerians will be able to read and assess us.
“So, I am not meant to talk and, of
course, you have heard from the planning minister, the finance minister and the
secretary to the government; that will give you the idea of what we have done.”
Jonathan’s cabinet represented by SGF
Anyim Pius Anyim, finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and national planning
minister Usman Shamsudeen presented a sector-by-sector report of the
performance level to show that the country’s economy was growing rapidly and
steadily.
A mid-term report they presented at the
event showed that within two years the Jonathan administration had been able to
stabilise the exchange rate at between N155 and N160 to a dollar while
inflation rate has also slowed to 9.1 per cent from 12.4 per cent within the period
under review.
They noted that the country’s external
reserves have increased from $32.08billion in May 2011 to $48.4billion as of
May 2013 with Excess Crude Account increasing from $4billion to $6billion in
2013.
Out of the 14 key policy objectives of
the federal government’s reform programmes set in 2011, they said, government
had already achieved 8.
Minister of Finance and coordinating
minister for the economy Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, while presenting the report,
noted that the administration’s policy was to reduce recurrent expenditure and
complete unfinished capital projects. The minister said, “Recurrent expenditure
has dropped from 74.4% of total budget in 2011 to 68.7% in 2013; envelop system
developed to enable ministers prioritise uncompleted capital projects.”
Announcing that annual borrowing has
fallen from N852 billion in 2011 to N588 billion in 2013, she said the
country’s debt has reduced abysmally, even as she comparatively listed some
countries and their GDP alongside that of Nigeria as follows: “Nigeria --21%,
South Africa-42.7%, SS A-34.2%, USA-106%, Japan -225% and UK - 90%.
Okonjo-Iweala added that waiver and
tariff policies had changed, as government was now focusing on sectoral waivers
rather than individual.
Procurement policy implementation, she
continued, stepped up to prevent corruption through aggressive monitoring of
contract threshold, increased awareness, encouraging whistle-blowing,
introduction of stiffer penalties, introduction and take-off of e-procurement,
adding that all these led improvement savings of N420 billion as at the end of
FY2012.
Noting that a new petroleum subsidy
regime payment regime is in place to help stem leakages, she said, “We audited
N1 trillion and found N232 billion. So far, we have recovered about N14
billion. We have tightened the payment process. PPPRA reduced the number of oil
marketers from 43 to 32.
Secretary to the government of the
federation (SGF) Anyim, who spoke on good governance, noted that there had been
emphasis on consultation and dialogue, process and procedure, clear and
need-driven projects concession, open and competitive procurement processes,
equitable distribution of social amenities, diligent planning and execution
strategies, checks and balances, rule of law and extensive expansion of civil
space together with respect for citizens’ right, among others.
Source: Leadership
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