THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE OF SOCIAL INVESTMENT AND NPOWER
As the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) embarks on fiscal performance monitoring of government policies the major one appears to be the social investment and NPower project. The direction and implementation of Federal government’s policy on social investment and NPower remain unsatisfactory if the feedback from people across the nation is anything to go by. Feedback of any nomenclature is appropriate for the government that put the scheme in place, for response and adjustment or scrapping. In other words its success and failure can be measured by the feedback so far.
I am aware that the scheme has three main layers with school feeding being implemented in phases of states across the country. Just the same way 9 states were designated as pilot states. What criteria was adopted in the grouping of states that constitute the first, second and so on? Apparently asserting the equality of states the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun once said that “Every state is a center of prosperity”. Without further inquiry nothing more than executive discretion appear to be the only criteria. This grouping of states has been criticized for the same reason why former Goldman Sachs economist, Jim O’Neil was criticized for coining group of nations: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey as MINT and so on. The concept with economic problems of those nations as undertone was wrongly taken for investment concept.
However, for the conditional cash transfer scheme the first group of states comprising 9 states commenced the payment of N5,000 to the “most vulnerable” in the society amidst confusion as to what eligibility criteria is adopted or to be adopted by states and their communities. Be that as it may, the implementation took off in earnest. Meanwhile fingers are crossed as to how that pans out.
But judging from PMB’s first executive order on the recruitment of 10,000 police officers across the nation that failed to produce desired result because of eligibility criteria, one wonders whether the government learned any lesson from that experience which may come handy for application in the present scenario? This was quickly followed by the proposed recruitment of 500,000 graduates across the nation as teachers. Now one of the questions trailing the experiment is how ‘national’ is the scheme with the kind of disparity seen among the states with competing populations?
This issue of disparity were raised by the proposed beneficiaries from their different states. For instance looking at their data some states like Bayelsa, Akwai Ibom, Bornu produced poorer data (2000+) than Kogi, Lsgos (4000+). What eligibility criteria led to this disparity? And why did federal character balance provided by s.43 of the 1999 Constitution not applied to assuage claims of improper balance?
Perhaps one of the perennial problems with governments when it comes to policies such as this social investment and NPower is inadequacy of publicity. Since they are information-driven schemes, only major urban cities get the quantum of publicity that generate huge responses as opposed to relevant counterparts in non-urban remote states. How was this acknowledged fact handled by the authority to balance the disparity? Or do we say that they were indolent to be domiciled in non-urban states as opposed to their cosmopolitan counterparts.
The stark result is that the policies are real and palpable in cosmopolitan states in relation to less urban states. I believe that the intensity of publicity of the information gave rise to the disparity of awareness reflected on the response level by various states. Therefore it c an be seen that enlightenment in one state appeared more in some communities than the others. That brings to the fore the question as to whose responsibility it is to ensure that information of these critical policies receive grass-root awareness, mobilization and implementation. Yet some of the problems appear circumstantial when you consider the fact that for instance no local government or community is without cybercafés; whereas in states like Kebbi, Akwai Ibom, Ebonyi etc cannot boast of such luxury. With programmes such as social investment and NPower and many others which are information-driven and online applicability the disparity is bound to be obvious, therefore shifting the burden of balancing the disparities on the authority.
Iyke Ozemena Attorney
IKECHUKWU O. ODOEMELAM & CO
Corporate Attorneys/Consultants
ideaworkshop@live.com
As the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) embarks on fiscal performance monitoring of government policies the major one appears to be the social investment and NPower project. The direction and implementation of Federal government’s policy on social investment and NPower remain unsatisfactory if the feedback from people across the nation is anything to go by. Feedback of any nomenclature is appropriate for the government that put the scheme in place, for response and adjustment or scrapping. In other words its success and failure can be measured by the feedback so far.
I am aware that the scheme has three main layers with school feeding being implemented in phases of states across the country. Just the same way 9 states were designated as pilot states. What criteria was adopted in the grouping of states that constitute the first, second and so on? Apparently asserting the equality of states the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun once said that “Every state is a center of prosperity”. Without further inquiry nothing more than executive discretion appear to be the only criteria. This grouping of states has been criticized for the same reason why former Goldman Sachs economist, Jim O’Neil was criticized for coining group of nations: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey as MINT and so on. The concept with economic problems of those nations as undertone was wrongly taken for investment concept.
However, for the conditional cash transfer scheme the first group of states comprising 9 states commenced the payment of N5,000 to the “most vulnerable” in the society amidst confusion as to what eligibility criteria is adopted or to be adopted by states and their communities. Be that as it may, the implementation took off in earnest. Meanwhile fingers are crossed as to how that pans out.
But judging from PMB’s first executive order on the recruitment of 10,000 police officers across the nation that failed to produce desired result because of eligibility criteria, one wonders whether the government learned any lesson from that experience which may come handy for application in the present scenario? This was quickly followed by the proposed recruitment of 500,000 graduates across the nation as teachers. Now one of the questions trailing the experiment is how ‘national’ is the scheme with the kind of disparity seen among the states with competing populations?
This issue of disparity were raised by the proposed beneficiaries from their different states. For instance looking at their data some states like Bayelsa, Akwai Ibom, Bornu produced poorer data (2000+) than Kogi, Lsgos (4000+). What eligibility criteria led to this disparity? And why did federal character balance provided by s.43 of the 1999 Constitution not applied to assuage claims of improper balance?
Perhaps one of the perennial problems with governments when it comes to policies such as this social investment and NPower is inadequacy of publicity. Since they are information-driven schemes, only major urban cities get the quantum of publicity that generate huge responses as opposed to relevant counterparts in non-urban remote states. How was this acknowledged fact handled by the authority to balance the disparity? Or do we say that they were indolent to be domiciled in non-urban states as opposed to their cosmopolitan counterparts.
The stark result is that the policies are real and palpable in cosmopolitan states in relation to less urban states. I believe that the intensity of publicity of the information gave rise to the disparity of awareness reflected on the response level by various states. Therefore it c an be seen that enlightenment in one state appeared more in some communities than the others. That brings to the fore the question as to whose responsibility it is to ensure that information of these critical policies receive grass-root awareness, mobilization and implementation. Yet some of the problems appear circumstantial when you consider the fact that for instance no local government or community is without cybercafés; whereas in states like Kebbi, Akwai Ibom, Ebonyi etc cannot boast of such luxury. With programmes such as social investment and NPower and many others which are information-driven and online applicability the disparity is bound to be obvious, therefore shifting the burden of balancing the disparities on the authority.
Iyke Ozemena Attorney
IKECHUKWU O. ODOEMELAM & CO
Corporate Attorneys/Consultants
ideaworkshop@live.com
