Kunle Aderinokun
4 November 2008
Lagos — NEPAD is a holistic, integrated sustainable development initiative for the economic and social revival of Africa involving a constructive partnership between Africa and the developed world. It has bee described as a political decision meant to aid prosperity of nations.
NPoA is a major deliverable from Nigeria's peer review as derived from recommendations, made by Nigerians as chronicled in the APRM Nigeria's Country Assessment Report (CSAR) and the APR Panel's Country Review Report (CRR). It seeks to address the shortcomings, weaknesses as well as strengths and best practices identified in the CSAR/CRR.
APRM, which is a flagship of NEPAD to actualise the declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance, is an instrument voluntarily acceded to by member states of the African Union as an African self-monitoring mechanism.
It is a mutually agreed instrument for self-monitoring by participating members states. The primary purpose of the APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practices.
Agenda of Cost
Nigeria is to spend about $20 billion annually for four years (January 2009 to December 2012), translating to a total of about $80 billion, that is, N9.6 trillion, to implement the National Programme of Action (NPoA) under the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), the Nigerian office of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has said.
The cost of the implementation was given at the just-concluded Meeting of National Council on Development Planning (NCDP) and Joint Planning Board (JPB) in Minna, Niger, by the Director, Administration and Finance, NEPAD Nigeria, Mr. Wali Kurawa.
There, he said the final review of the country was concluded and approved at a Special Summit of Participating Heads of States and Government Implementation Committee held in Cotonou, Republic of Benin on October 26, 2008.
The joint meeting was attended by delegates from 28 States of the Federation and Abuja, and other stakeholders. In all, 177 delegates attended the meeting.
The annual cost, Kurawa said, is a supplementation of the normal annual budgets of the three tiers of government and has been designed to increase the country's overall capacity for implementing development projects.
"86 per cent of what is in the NPoA is in the budget of the states. Its only 14 per cent that will be added. Its not that there will be a fresh budget for them," he explained.
The annual cost, he also said, has a structure, which is reflective of the prioritisation of governance issues, including socio-economic development at $8 billion (N960 billion); democracy and political governance, $5 billion (N600 billion); economic governance and management, $4 billion (N480 billion); and corporate governance, $3 billion (N360 billion).
He said the contribution of the three tiers of government has been estimated to be in the proportion of 52.7 per cent for the Federal Government; 26.7 per cent for states; and 20.6 per cent, for local governments.
Specifically, he said the minimum gross expenditure the Federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) will incur in executing the Federal Government-designated NPoA activities in 2009 is N522.283 billion. This he pointed, is 22 per cent of gross revenue accruing to the Federal Government in 2007 and 19 per cent of Federal budgetary appropriation in 2008.
Kurawa added that the Federal MDAs are to be responsible for the Federal Government-designated NPoA activities that fall within the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
He said the ongoing and statutory activities of Federal MDAs with adequate budget appropriations need no additional funding from the NPoA.
Essentially, he disclosed, NPoA projects in the 2009 Budget are to be marked in order to facilitate expenditure tracking as well as monitoring and evaluation (M &E), while the Budget Office of the Federation and the National Assembly are expected to incorporate the NPoA Budget estimates in 2009 Appropriation.
Kurawa noted that the state and the local governments have to ownership and responsibility of NEPAD. While explaining that the APRM was voluntary, he said Lagos has already abstained and that Ondo, Ogun, Osun states, amongst others have adopted the mechanism.
Vital Planning Framework
Earlier at the opening of the joint meeting, the National Planning Commission (NPC), in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said that it has developed a framework, which would enable states to compute their own Gross Domestic Products (GDPs).
Immediate past Minister/deputy Chairman, NPC, Senator Sanusi Daggash disclosed this while declaring the meeting opened.
GDP is the basic measure of the output of an economy in a given year. It is a key parameter for measuring the performance of a nation's economic performance, which measures the values of goods such as cement, eggs, yam, tomatoes and beer produced, amongst others along with the values of services such as medical services, hotel services, amongst others.
Presently, in Nigeria, GDP is measured on an aggregate basis.
Already, Daggash revealed, the National economic Council (NEC) has endorsed a memorandum on the Framework, which it had earlier presented to it.
He said the development was part of efforts aimed at deepening the GDP computation process and determining the size of the economy of each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Daggash expressed the hope that, the computation of states' GDP would generate considerable healthy competition among the states of the Federation as is currently being practiced in other parts of the world such as the United States of America (USA).
He said some states have already initiated moves to partner with the Federal Government in the computation of their GDP. He however cautioned that no state can individually determine its own GDP in isolation of others, as all states' GDP within the Federation must sum up to the National GDP. The process, he added, also has to be properly sequenced to avoid duplication of efforts and resources.
To this end, he disclosed that, NBS was finalising arrangements in developing an appropriate framework for setting out standards, controlling variables, benchmarks and methodology for the exercise.
Daggash further revealed that, as part of the efforts to ensure a coordinated approach, the NPC, in conjunction with NBS, will soon organise a sensitisation workshop for key officials responsible for planning, research and statistics in the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT to discuss the methodology to be adopted for the computation of state GDPs.
"This would be preceded by a two-day stakeholders' consultative forum to be organised by the National Planning Commission for states' commissioners responsible for planning and chief executives of states planning commission," he added.
Daggash noted that the theme of the meeting, 'Development of States' Gross Domestic Product (GDP): An Imperative for the Achievement of Vision 2020,' was in line with the present administration's desire to cooperate, partner and collaborate with the other tiers of government in the pursuit of the objective of being among the league of 20 largest economies in the world by the year 2020.
Concerned State Input
Remarking at the occasion, Niger State Governor, Alhaji Muazu Babangida Aliyu said the height of development that any country could attain depends largely on the understanding of the basic element of interactive forces that unfold into real economic growth and development.
"It will be difficult for us to attain economic growth and development when most of our industries rely on generators for power, when our rural farmers have no roads to transport their produce to markets, when our literacy level is very low and our healthcare system is dysfunctional QUOTE," he submitted.
Aliyu posited that, development planning was a veritable tool for the attainment of set goals and targets by an organisation or government. He therefore said planning outfits were the gateways foe effective and efficient implementation of development projects.
He blamed the lack of planning for the slow pace in development in the country.
According to him, if proper planning had been done in the past by leaders on how to tackle the problems of poverty, backwardness in education and other vices facing the country today, the country would have been more developed by now.
Aliyu therefore enjoined leaders to imbibe the attitude of planning to avoid the trend of challenges the country is faced with.
"Because we have failed to plan in the past that is why we are facing most of the challenges we are confronted with so the best thing for those of us involved in national planning is to plan ahead to move us from where we are today", he said
Resolutions of Hope
In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, it was recommended that states should put in motion, machinery for development of states GDP before January, 2009, and thereafter produce states GDP on a quarterly basis.
All states were also advised to participate in the sensitisation workshop and Stakeholders Consultative Forum for computation of States GDP to be organised by the NPC, in collaboration with the NBS.
Besides, the meeting urged the states to invest in human capital development in data collection, collation and processing.
Lamenting that donor agencies were in the habit of by-passing NPC which is the national focal point in aid coordination to sign memoranda of understanding (MoUs)/agreements with State Governments, the meeting recommended that henceforth, due process must be adhered to before such interventions by donor agencies/development partners.
Also, as part of the recommendations, the meeting urged States to replicate the NPC model on the format for the production of report on Donors' interventions at the state level for tracking Donor activities.
The meeting noted with concern the paradigm paralysis in the nation's move towards sustainable development as anchored by NEPAD, and recommended that all states should develop time-bound action plan to implement NEPAD strategies for sustainable development, especially in the issue of peer review mechanism.
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