Opinion
Debating The Deregulation Issue
There are several ways the public sector affects the supply of goods and services. They include direct provision, subsidisation of prices, specification and enforcement of regulations for private sector provision, and sometimes a combination of two or more of these ways.
It is economic bottlenecks, scarcities, apparent market failures in resource allocation, a specific shortage or abuse of monopoly or Oligopoly that create the socio-economic conditions that justify public intervention.
In Nigeria where there is widespread and chronic poverty, high and rising levels of unemployment, and wide and growing disparities in the distribution of income, it will be foolhardy to rely on the market system to allocate resources. Why? The functioning of the market system is spontaneous – blueprints for the use pattern of resources are not prepared in advance.. Market mechanism is often described as an action without programme. And as pointed out by Gerald M. Meier in his book Leading Issues in Economic Development: “the market mechanism is criticized as being ineffective, unreliable, or irrelevant for the problems now encountered by developing nations”.
It is against this backdrop that one appreciates the passion with which many Nigerians particularly members of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and Civil Society groups are opposing the deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry. On October 29, 2009, Labour and the Civil Society groups held a rally in Abuja in protest against the deregulation policy. To determine the popularity of the policy, the NLC President, Abdulwaheed Omar, during the rally, called on the Federal Government to subject it (the deregulation policy) to a national referendum.
What are the arguments against the policy. Believing that with the implementation of the policy, the pump price of petrol would rise above N100.00, labour is convinced that the poor masses would face untold hardship and every segment of the economy would be affected adversely.
It has also been argued that in a country such as Nigeria where there is no social security to cushion the effects of the current global economic crisis, this is not a holy time for the deregulation policy which will mean cutting down social spending. To make life easier for their citizens, in the face of the global economic meltdown, Europe, the United States of America (USA) and other countries across the world are increasing social spending by providing stimulus packages for their economies.
Besides, the implementation of the policy would face lots of problems as there is nothing to show that government has put in place a consistent and reliable policy framework which will guarantee investors’ confidence in the whole thing.
Worse still, there is no public education regarding the policy. Seminars and workshops are not being organised by government to explain to stakeholders their preparedness to implement the policy and to also elicit inputs from the people. So far, enough light has not been cast on the entire thing.
As part of the plan to reform the oil industry, the federal government on the other hand sees the deregulation of the downstream sector not only as a solution to the persistent fuel scarcity in the country but also as a means of conserving and directing the huge chunk of money spent in subsidizing oil importation to vital areas where it is needed in the economy.
The federal government has put the amount of money spent in sustaining the subsidy package within the last four years at about N2 trillion and that of 2008 alone at N654.76 billion. So the Minister of Finance, Mansur Muhter justifies government’s deregulation policy in these words: “We have found out that we are really subsidizing inefficiencies, fraud, racketeering in the whole production chain and in that context basically, given the competing needs for scarce resources, government felt we needed to do something. We are also subsidizing other countries.”
But all in all, the truth is that the federal government is not prepared for the implementation of its deregulation policy. The decision to postpone the implementation of the policy is therefore appropriate.
To prepare for the implementation of the policy is for government to do a whole lot of things to keep its house in order first. This involves providing level playing ground for all stakeholders and strengthening the industry for its effective and efficient operation. It involves making the country’s four refineries in Port Harcourt, Warrri, and Kaduna functional, and issuing licenses to individuals and the multinationals to set up private refineries. And it involves tackling the problems of infrastructure in the country, dealing with the Niger Delta dilemma, and addressing the lingering controversy over the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which the Federal Executive Council has been pushing for approval by the National Assembly.
Nigeria is the sixth largest oil producer in the world. Its petroleum pump price should be one of the lowest in the world.
Vincent Ochonma
Quote:”Communities have rights to peace, safety, and quality of life. Noise pollution, crowds, or other impacts from religious activities can affect these rights. Balancing these interests requires consideration and dialogue”.
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown