MAKE YOUR ECONOMIC POLICIES FLEXIBLE - IMF TELL BUHARI

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund, IMF, have asked on the Federal Government to provide an economic blueprint, if its drive for foreign loans was not to be stalled.

According to Vanguard, the officials of both financial institutions have questioned the Minister of Finance and her team over the absence of a blueprint for which the loans being sought would be utilised.

Sources at the Presidency said at the last IMF/World Bank Group Annual Meetings, that the Nigeria team was asked to produce an economic blueprint for which the IMF/World Bank Group will offer support.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Finance and that of the United Kingdom, told the Nigerian team that without a comprehensive economic blueprint, Nigeria would not get support from IMF and the World Bank.

The source said that usually, the IMF asks countries for what it called Policy Support Instrument, PSI, an instrument which serves as a document through which the multilateral institution monitors the economic progress of the country they support.

Such an economic framework, they argued, aside from addressing the current challenges, would go a long way to engender confidence in both local and international investors on the way forward. The source said this had become very imperative, given that investor-perception of Nigeria’s outlook was critical to its economic recovery.

At the moment, the Federal Government has not been able to come up with such a policy document. But in reaction to Vanguard’s enquiry a presidential aide said the present administration was working on a comprehensive economic blueprint that would soon be ready for launching.

The source, who said the issue of economic blueprint had become very contentious in government circles, said the economic management team had produced a blue print that will be launched soon. Stressing the need for an economic blueprint last week, Dr Obadiah Mailafia, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), advised the Federal Government to produce a comprehensive economic blueprint to fast track economic growth and development.

Mailafia gave the advice while speaking as a guest lecturer at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, 2016 Annual Lecture in Abuja. In the lecture, entitled Fighting Corruption and Growing a Sustainable Nigerian Economy, Mailafia appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to listen to the right advice that would help fix the nation’s economy within a short time

Mailafai said

 Nigerians are getting impatient and they are complaining that this change is not translating into what they are hoping for.  

We must do what we have to do to rescue our economy and to get the great Nigerian people back to work.

He also advised the government to create an entrepreneurial state by encouraging innovation and generating critical public goods that would support creativity and high level productivity.

He said: 

Sadly, we noticed that Nigeria does not have an economic administration. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example, has at his beck and call some 300 highly well-trained economists in the Treasury. 

Their job is to worry day and night about the economy, monitor key trends, analyse critical developments and proffer policy. We need to build such an administration, in addition to strengthening the National Economic Management Team that has become virtually comatose. 

We cannot continue to blame previous administrations. We can only hope like the great Franklin Roosevelt in America of the 1930s and like Barack Obama during the height of the Great Recession.  

Our President needs a brains trust of people who love Nigeria passionately and are ready to do what it takes to take us to the path that destiny has ordained for us.