However, the
government must think through this initiative which, for now, seems not borne
out by clear-cut policy, so that the scheme would not just be about giving out
money to political jobbers, idle looters and others who may have access to the
fund’s disbursers. The focus has to be on disbursement for productive purposes
alone, in which case, what goes in would be measured against the output,
through effective monitoring and encouragement of beneficiaries.
Unemployed
millions of Nigerians including artisans would be forgiven any probable
indifference to the new initiative, having fallen victims in the past of a
plethora of interventionist funds that were literally programmed to fail due to
poor implementation and greed of the superintending government officials. Then,
funds disbursement lacked transparency while monitoring process was almost
non-existent. For a long period thereafter, corruption thrived as officials
looted the funds with impunity. This proposed artisan support scheme must,
therefore, be spared such a fate.
It is
imperative that the new scheme succeeds because in the present situation
characterized by free fall in international oil prices, and by extension,
dwindling revenues for government, there is no room for resource wastage either
by government officials or the recipients of the loans. Gratifyingly, the
Muhammadu Buhari administration’s sight seems set on the path of rectitude. It
would, therefore, be a plus for the economy if the government got this scheme
and other attempts at kick-starting the small and medium-scale industrial
sector right.
The scheme
is meant to be a micro credit component of a six-point social protection
programme embedded in the 2016 federal budget proposals already before the
National Assembly. This and the five other social protection investment plans
believed to be anchored in the N500 billion-budget provision, according to
estimates, is an unprecedented nine per cent (9%) of the total budget. (The
other five plans include Teach Nigeria Scheme targeted at employing 500, 000
teachers; the Youth Employment Agency (assembling 300, 000-500, 000
non-graduate youths for skill acquisition); the Conditional Cash Transfer
Scheme (conditional payment of N5000 per month directly to one million
extremely poor Nigerians); the Home Grown School Feeding Initiative and the Free
Education Scheme for Science Students.
These ideas
are at once good, ambitious and achievable. What the government needs is focus,
commitment and honesty of purpose. Genuine desire for service to the people is
the key to any breakthrough with these social plans. Past failed schemes are
there to serve as guides: the National Directorate of Employment (NDE); the
partly-successful Micro Finance Banks, after the much-abused Peoples Bank and
the latest in the failure list, the Subsidy Re-Investment Programme (SURE-P).
The small
and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) certainly are yet to have full and desired
impact on the economy because of poor policy and corruption. The Youth
Employment Agency sounds more like an offshoot of the NDE. The envisaged change
must, however, not only be in the nomenclature. This must be packaged to have
the desired impact on the citizens. It bears restating that beneficiaries,
operators or coordinators of the proposed support schemes should realize that
this is no longer a share of any national cake. On the part of the government,
there has to be a conscious effort to build upon existing models to get the
loans to targets, especially by harnessing structures like the cooperative
societies.
Some other
non-governmental bodies have made similar efforts at micro credit advancement
and these could serve as template for the planners of the new scheme. For
instance, the International Institute for Local Development (IILD’s) Warajiji
micro-credit scheme is a pointer. Borrowing heavily, from the Grameen Bank
model in Bangladesh, the objective has been to improve the economic base and
overall socio-economic conditions of disadvantaged women and their families.
That scheme currently provides interest-free loans to about 150 women in two
local communities (Karamajiji and Waru) on the outskirts of the Federal Capital
Territory, Abuja. The IILD loans are known to have extended and easy repayment
schedules and are administered in supported groups that promote knowledge
sharing, learning and accountability. It has been a great success.
A solid
relationship also has to be established between loan managers and collectors.
Beneficiaries can be encouraged with incentives to show more interest in
producing raw materials for use at other levels of production to boost the
economy, improve commerce and provide more jobs.
The
government has rightly identified micro-credit as a tool for poverty
alleviation. In that wise, factors constraining its effectiveness should be
tackled and removed while credit delivery and sustainability in public schemes
should also be promoted. There must be a conscious effort on every front to
push the growth of the Nigerian economy. This is a good starting point,
provided the implementation is right. (Source Guardian)
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