The federal government set up last year a high-profile committee on job-creation. It is a good coincidence that the committee headed by industrialist Aliko Dangote has come up with its report at a time of rising expectations. As President Goodluck Jonathan takes oath of office for another tenure on May 29, it would not be out of place for the jobless to hope that they would be employed in the economy before the tenure ends.
It would be strange if the President’s speech on that day does not have some lines on poverty alleviation. At least 50% of the population is believed to be languishing below the poverty line. Now, you cannot be talking seriously about poverty reduction without confronting the menacing scourge of joblessness. Worse still, the socio-economic plague is ravaging mostly the youths.
Officially, unemployment rate is put at 19.7%. However, to the victims of unemployment, such figures from the National Bureau of Statistics would appear to be a gross understatement. In fact, if you put the unemployment rate at 90% to a young man who has been jobless for five years after graduation; he would not perceive it as an exaggeration. The poor and jobless have no patience for technical finesse in discussing this serious problem.
The public perception of unemployment rate is somewhat reminiscent of an anecdote reported by a former Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan, in his memoirs entitled “The Age of Turbulence”. According to Greenspan, during the presidential campaigns in 1980, Ronald Reagan as the republican candidate accused the then incumbent democrat, Jimmy Carter, of mismanaging the American economy to the point of a “depression”.
Reagan’s economic experts were worried about the technical connotations of their candidate’s statement. Their professional colleagues on the other side would readily laugh at the seeming economic illiteracy of their candidate. So they took time to explain to Reagan that what American was experiencing then was only a “recession” and that a depression would be a more calamitous affair in the economic sphere. The experts were satisfied that the candidate had got a good grasp of the technical distinction between a recession and a depression.
However, when Reagan got the opportunity to show his mastery of the issue he did not fail to impress his audience. He simply put the matter like this: “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And a recovery is when Jimmy carter loses his”. Reagan’s statement instantly became a one liner. Newspapers quoted him widely. Beyond wit, Reagan was attempting to humanise economic debates. What he did was actually a demystification of technicalities. Sometimes, experts become so engrossed with their fanciful play with statistics and graphs that they appear to forget that the issue is first about human beings.
So it is understandable if the official 19.7% unemployment rate does not sound believable to the millions of victims of joblessness out there. Yet, that does mean it is not scientifically computed.
It is interesting that the economics of job-creation is not confined to the conference of experts and policy makers. It is daily being discussed on the street by the people themselves. Now and then you watch television footages of self-employed artisans lamenting that the greatest threat to their businesses is poor supply of electricity. All that these people in the informal sector demand from government are policies that would make power supply stable. They say with steady power supply their businesses would expand. In other words, given the right business climate they can create jobs. They don’t require any expertise to see the linkage between the electricity issue and lack of jobs.
The report of the Dangote committee is replete with analyses which are easy to digest. The recommendations issuing from the analysis are coupled with the strategy of implementation. There are even suggested practical initiatives that could be taken by both the public and private sectors to achieve the goal of massive job creation. The initiatives are suggested for the in sectors of agriculture, entrepreneurship, education, health, entertainment, sports etc.
It is also noteworthy that the committee drew lessons from the examples of other countries that are at different levels of development. Some of the countries are South Africa, Chile, Indonesia, United States, Germany, China and Norway.
Instructively, the committee singles out Brazil as an example in the conclusion of the report. The committee puts the comparison like this : “We can be inspired by the economic transformation of Brazil especially as there are key similarities between Nigeria and Brazil namely oil and gas production, large tracts of arable land, a large population…”.
The turning point for Brazil came nine years ago with the election of former labour leader, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. By the time he handed over to his successor recently, there was a global acknowledgement, from left and right, that a qualitative improvement had been recorded in the lives of people who were poor and jobless before he won election. About 44 million people were moved above poverty line and a 29 million-strong middle class was created.
In fact, Lula was quoted in the report as having said that Brazil has recorded “one of the lowest unemployment rates in the history of humanity.” His economic management was focused on jobs, jobs and jobs. No doubt, the Brazilian example is inspiring. Remember, however, that it required a Lula to bring about the transformation. Will Jonathan be our own Lula? Maybe that question is beyond the scope of the report. But that is the challenge as the report is being discussed.
The report should be widely discussed beyond the circuit of policy makers. Such informed discussions could help in nudging the Jonathan administration to take the implementation of acceptable recommendations seriously. State governments should also find useful recommendations in the report.
What makes the Brazilian example exceptional is that a good mix of policies in the eight years of Lula was the basis of the success story. There must be an efficient economic management for poverty to be reduced and jobs created as has been done in Brazil. This typology of economic management is yet to be embraced in Nigeria. The economy here has been managed to achieve jobless growth. Officialdom is content with trumpeting growth indices.
An economic management regime in which 80% if budgets goes into recurrent expenditure with little for capital projects is inimical to job-creation and poverty reduction. Expenditures on to infrastructure, for example, could help in job-creation.
Before the report of the Dangote committee, there was an earlier one put together by World Bank experts entitled “Putting Nigeria to Work: A Strategy for Employment and Growth”. Issues of productivity, skills, access to finance and infrastructure gap are also well discussed in the World Bank report. There are other studies on Nigeria by the International Labour Organisation and similar bodies.
What makes the report of the Dangote committee particularly important is that it was the federal government itself that commissioned it. Like earlier reports, this one, again, has shown that job-creation remains a central issue of economic management.
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