Dr Omo Aregbenyen of Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, has suggested that the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) be replaced with the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP).
Aregbenyen gave the advice at a training and media presentation of an ‘Industrialisation Report’ by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Lagos.
The Tidesports source reports that Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is a German private, non-profit organisation committed to values of social democracy.
In 2016, it commissioned a study to examine past and existing socio-economic and political policies affecting the state of industrialisation in Nigeria.
Aregbenyen said unlike the MTEF that was just a micro-economic projection for a period, the MTDP allowed costs to be included in programmes and projects.
According to him, the MTEF does not make legislative arm of government to hold the executives accountable for uncompleted and abandoned projects.
Aregbenyen said under the MTEF, projects which ought to have been achieved in a particular period still found their ways into subsequent fiscal years.
He said that the advantages of MTDP was that it would take into cognisance the effects of cost of indicators such as crude oil price, inflation and exchange rates, among others, on governments’ plans before embarking on projects.
The economist also said that the MTDP would allow for review of projects to see if it was properly done or not completed and would find out the reasons they were so.
Aregbenyen also said that the MTDP would discourage recurrence of uncompleted projects in subsequent fiscal years.
He recalled the periods where Ministries, Departments and Agencies were mandated to be involved in MTEF process so that their size of revenue would be captured.
The economist said that the MTDP would only focus on priority in terms of projects and thereby give actual amount needed for such, while others would be embarked upon in the following years.
“This would help to prevent challenges of abandoned projects,” he said.
Aregbenyen said that laws should be enacted to commit government to policy continuity to boost investors’ confidence in the nation’s economic stability.
He said that government should provide a structured regime of incentives for manufacturing industries on a sector-specific basis and allow it to run its course under an institutionalised arrangement.
The economist said that infrastructure gaps, especially power and roads, should be bridged towards driving a virile industrialised economy.
According to him, about 18 industrial policies have been formulated from 1952 till date and the policies have failed to achieve the desired results of boosting manufacturing sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).