Ex-minister calls for prudent use of fiscal resources

Mr Frank Nweke, former Minister of Information, has advocated the prudent and discipline in the application of funds for the implementation of infrastructure development in the country.

Nweke made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the side lines of the on-going 23rd Nigeria Economic Summit in Abuja on Tuesday.

Nweke, who was reacting to the impact of N118 trillion generated from oil proceeds since 1961, said there had been much leakage and mismanagement of Nigerian fiscal resources within government system over the years.

“ But the truth is that there is a lot of leakage and mismanagement of Nigerian fiscal resources within Nigerian government system, and are we worse off it.

“I was in China and it is incredible what has happened there in just the last 30 years of serious visioning, discipline implementation and ethical disposition to labour practices.

“ I will like to say that Nigeria can never develop by accident; no nation can develop by accident; you must envision, you must plan, you must articulate programmes.

“ You must find resources and you must be disciplined in the way that you manage those resources to be able to implement what you want to implement.

“If you don’t, we are going to be worse for it, whether it is power sector, whether it is the road sector, the school system, the airport, it is the same thing.

“ If we decide to take the monies meant for public infrastructure and put them in the private pockets, we will continue not to have infrastructure; we will continue not to have quality life and our economy will continue to be stagnant .“

On development of the local content in oil and gas sector, Nweke said it was cherry the current government was making some progress in trying to expand the skills set .

He said it was good that government was creating an environment for the local operators to evolve better skills to work with the private sector and the global environment.

He, however, said it was necessary for Nigeria to continue to articulate and implement long term goals to domesticate the local content operations.

“If you look at countries that are similar to Nigeria in terms of dependence on oil and gas, they had articulated a long time strategic plan which enabled them to domesticate their operations over a long period.

“They started with their foreign partners, foreign expertise, but they deliberately put in place strategic programmes and plans to train their own people to take over.

“ Weather you are talking about technical jobs, technical support, or investment in the sector, they made it easier for their own citizens to play in the sector; that is what the Nigerian Local Content Act is meant to address.“

He said that there was the need to further drive the implementation of the local content act to ensure the development of skills to usher in bigger Nigerian players into the sector.

“We need many more people operating at their highest level in engineering, mining, in exploration to come in to oil and gas sector.“

On ease of doing business, he said that there was the need to evolve more sustainable approaches to encourage the agencies of government to be more responsive in their mandate to deliver efficient quality service to business and to Nigerian citizens.