NDOMA-EGBA: CORRUPTION HAS RENDERED NIGERIA’S ECONOMY PROSTRATE

LAGOS, Nigeria – Chairman Governing Board of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, has stressed the need for the fight against corruption to be given total support by all Nigerians.

The NDDC chief made the remark while delivering a paper titled: “Perspective on Economic Growth and Recovery Plan” at the just concluded annual conference of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) held in Lagos.

The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), a medium term plan for 2017 – 2020, aimed at putting the country on the path of economic progress, was unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on April 5 2017.

Ndoma-Egba identified systemic corruption as one of the major constraints of economic planning in Nigeria that made all the previous development plans of government not to achieve the desired goal of advancing the country’s economy and making life better for the populace.

“Corruption is the big masquerade that has rendered our economy prostrate and almost grounding the Nigerian State. Nigerians have consciously or unconsciously, created systemic corruption in the polity and the trend has continued. Corruption has grown enormously in variety, magnitude and brazenness because it has been extravagantly fuelled by budgetary abuse and political patronage. Consequently, public and private sectors funds were channeled to political allies, business surrogates, personal or family friends in the guise of contracts to execute public works of one kind or another,” the NDDC helmsman said.

He observed that “There are several factors that breed corruption. Inefficient and incompetent bureaucracies as a result of intemperate States creation which has resulted in the institutionalization of essentially a unitary system of government and a nominal federalism is one of them. Corruption is very costly. Price Water House Coopers (PWC) believes that if the level of corruption in Nigeria were at the level of Ghana’s, Malaysia’s and Colombia’s, Nigeria’s economy worth USD 513 billion in 2014 would have been twenty two percent bigger. By 2030, PwC predicts that Nigeria’s economy should triple and that if Nigeria manages to reduce corruption to Malaysia’s level, the economy could be bigger by 37 per cent. The additional gain would be worth USD 534 billion after adjusting for inflation, about the current worth of the economy. Clearly, the price we are paying for corruption is needless.”

Ndoma-Egba urged the Federal Government to continue to demonstrate the zeal and determination to combat corruption, the hydra-headed monster sulking Nigeria and its citizenry. He suggested that the anti-graft agencies should be empowered with sufficient funding for them to be able to re-engineer their legal framework and do thorough job to ensure success in the anti-corruption war.

The former Senate Leader said: “In response to the current economic recession, the consensus among a cross section of Nigerians and policy analysts is that previous economic policies where the structure of the economy remained highly import dependent, consumption driven and undiversified with no culture of savings for the future and dilapidated infrastructure left the country ill-prepared for the recent collapse of crude oil prices and production. For instance, oil accounted for more than 95 per cent of exports and foreign exchange earnings while the manufacturing sector accounted for less than one percent of total exports.

“The Economic Growth and Recovery Plan introduced by the Government is tailored to reverse this trend. It has three broad strategic objectives – restoring growth of the economy, investing in the Nigerian people, and building a globally competitive economy… The plan is anchored on five execution priorities to kick-start economic recovery i.e. stabilization of the macroeconomic environment, achieving agriculture and food security, ensuring energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products, improving transport infrastructure, and driving industrialization through local and small business enterprises.”

According to him, “The plan boasts of being different from previous plans, as there appears to be strong political determination, commitment and will at the highest level to realize the objectives by tackling corruption, improving security and promoting effective collaboration and coordination between the Federal and State governments’ towards achieving these national objectives. As laudable as this plan may be, the Nigerian factor and the giant killers of previous plans are still very much with us. Thus how the much taunted political will steers the ship of this plan to achieve set objectives remains to be seen in no time given that there is always resistance to change and corruption has a way of fighting back.”