Enelamah, Udoma talk up business environment, 2016 budget goals

The two new ministers of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma and Zainab Ahmad, on Thursday signaled plans to ensure that the 2016 fiscal budget is used to address the daunting challenges of unemployment and high poverty rate.

Udoma Udo Udoma, the minister of national planning and budget, assured that their presence at the ministry would witness a turnaround, promising that no idea from the staff of the commission would be wished away, and that “it is by working together that the country can achieve the change we all desire”.

“We have been told the key directives that will drive the process, so we are going to start running and not walking in our approach to work. We are going to initiate long terms plans that will be sustainable and will have real impact on the lives of our people, as well as initiating and implementing budgets that will bring about increase in employment and reduction of poverty in Nigeria”, Zainab Ahmad said.

The Federal Government is proposing about N8 trillion in budgetary expenditure next year, with about N2.5 trillion targeting safety net programmes aimed at creating jobs and reducing poverty.

At a brief welcome event at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja, the newly appointed ministers reiterated  commitment to serve the nation diligently, as well as initiate long term plans to drive the economic agenda of the present administration.

Zainab Ahmed, the minister of state for planning and budget, re-echoed the zero budgeting plan, stating that the country’s budget would be driven with the plans behind them.

Ahmed lauded the initiative to merge the planning ministry with the budget office, expressing faith that the idea would go a long way in driving the execution of the planning processes.

“In the past, we have had so many plans, excellent ones at that, but they were not linked with the budget.  With the new development (of merging the planning ministry with the budget office) however, we will make a great change to the way forward to development.

Meanwhile, Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment has pledged to quickly work to improve Nigeria’s business environment and attract more investment, as he assumed duty in Abuja yesterday.

Enelamah was received on arrival by Aliyu Bisalla, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry .

Enelamah pledged to hit the ground running and bring his vast private sector experience to bear in the discharge of his mandate, as he solicited the co-operation of staff of the ministry, to be able to surmount daunting challenges, especially in investment and industrial sectors.

Enelamah, who  has headed the private equity company, African Capital Alliance, says his immediate agenda would be to redirect the focus of government revenue generation sources to the non-oil sector.

Analysts say one of  his key challenges would be to rejuvenate the country’s manufacturing industry to drive non-oil growth.

He would also be facing the challenge of revving up the country’s business environment, especially with the latest poor ranking of 169 in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking.

Nigeria recently improved by three places to 124th WEF Global Competitiveness rating. Last year’s revision of GDP is reflected in an increase in market size (up by eight places to 25th), lower government deficit and debt, and decreased national savings.

Improvements in property rights, the efficiency of the legal framework to settle and challenge disputes, and the accountability of the private sector lift the country’s institutions up by five places, albeit remaining low overall (124th).

The picture is mixed on efficiency of the goods market (100th), where a less competitive domestic environment outweighs improvements to encourage foreign competition; the financial market (79th), where banks are rated as relatively sound but access to finance remains problematic; and the labour market, which is one of the region’s most flexible (18th) but is dragged down by an inefficient use of talent (68th) and a comparatively low female participation rate (87th).

Priorities include investment in infrastructure (ranking 133rd and singled out as the most problematic factor for doing business) and human capital, where poor health in the workforce (134th) and inefficient higher education (128th) holds the country back from fulfilling its potential.

KEHINDE ABDULSALAM