The plan by the Federal Government to conduct an unemployment survey, as a means to generate 780,000 jobs for the youth this year is flawed both in conception and in the planned execution. Basically, it amounts to putting the cart before the horse. Any serious intention to create jobs should focus strongly in providing the requisite infrastructure and facilities; to provide the right atmosphere for spinning the jobs. In this light, Mrs. Josephine Washman, the Special Assistant to the President on Job creation Initiatives ought to re-examine the assertion ascribed to her.
Responding to questions from reporters, Mrs Washman stated that the Federal Government has made moves to conduct a census of unemployed persons during the first quarter of this year. As a matter of fact, she revealed that a standing committee on job creation, headed by the Minister of Labour, Emeka Wogu, has been set up to embark on the new unemployment survey in conjunction with the National Bureau of Statistics. Part of the initiative is a job creation musical show that would incorporate local and foreign entrepreneurs.
Justifying the intention of the government, she argued that proper job-creation plan cannot be implemented “until we know how many persons are unemployed, how many are skilled, the number that are unskilled and how many of them can be given training upgrade”. This is short of saying the issue of unemployment cannot be properly addressed without a reliable data base.
In a way, this admission of inadequate data management is consistent with a recent World Bank report that described the quality of all economic data from Nigeria as obsolete and, therefore, irrelevant for development planning and growth. The question is whether merely updating existing data base, is a way of addressing the unemployment crisis, fundamentally or otherwise.
How does a census of unemployed Nigerians help anybody in generating jobs, and therefore stamping out unemployment? What have been the antecedents of this government and previous regimes in data management? Has the country not passed through these waters before, going by its experiences with the National Population Census, the National Identity Card Scheme and the Voters’ Register, among others? How well might the nation be said to have advanced in terms of data management? Is this census of the unemployed a contrived big joke waiting to happen?
In the last decade, the government spent huge sums of money for the National Identity Card scheme, which made provisions for the inclusion of employment status and other details. If the government was confident about that scheme, nothing stops it from extracting the required information from its database? Nigerians are concerned that the government’s desire to collate a figure of unemployed persons may end up as a project with huge financial outlay, and with little result on jobs creation. If there is any urgent need to conduct a census of this nature, the government should make use of the Ministry of Labour, the Office of statistics or create a register of unemployed persons from the local government, rather than commit it into a national project.
Employments are not generated by conducting a census of jobless people; rather they are created by sincerely carrying out the needful things that make the environment conducive for job creation. While it is appropriate for government to create an enabling environment for employers of labour, rather than being an employer of labour, a committed and result-oriented approach to addressing unemployment across the country should begin with the right mindset. This entails making first things first, and the rest will fall in line. To this end, the government needs to ensure adequate and optimum supply of electricity, and adopt a model of industrialization that creates highly productive industries with simple technologies. In other words, to generate employment, the government needs to create the enabling environment for industries, such as construction, manufacturing and large scale farm projects, to grow. This demands a concerted effort to revamp and empower small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by dismantling the bottlenecks and the needless bureaucracy that impede their survival.
Any employment generation scheme that discounts this consideration is lacking in depth, and does not mean well for the country. And that is what this present job-creation initiative suggests.
As is typical of ill-conceived government schemes that are publicized with exaggerated optimism, this proposed census of the unemployed is an outlandish economic gambit stringed to political partisanship. Irrespective of where the proposal emanated, it should be stopped before it becomes another celebration of graft and ineptitude.
Responding to questions from reporters, Mrs Washman stated that the Federal Government has made moves to conduct a census of unemployed persons during the first quarter of this year. As a matter of fact, she revealed that a standing committee on job creation, headed by the Minister of Labour, Emeka Wogu, has been set up to embark on the new unemployment survey in conjunction with the National Bureau of Statistics. Part of the initiative is a job creation musical show that would incorporate local and foreign entrepreneurs.
Justifying the intention of the government, she argued that proper job-creation plan cannot be implemented “until we know how many persons are unemployed, how many are skilled, the number that are unskilled and how many of them can be given training upgrade”. This is short of saying the issue of unemployment cannot be properly addressed without a reliable data base.
In a way, this admission of inadequate data management is consistent with a recent World Bank report that described the quality of all economic data from Nigeria as obsolete and, therefore, irrelevant for development planning and growth. The question is whether merely updating existing data base, is a way of addressing the unemployment crisis, fundamentally or otherwise.
How does a census of unemployed Nigerians help anybody in generating jobs, and therefore stamping out unemployment? What have been the antecedents of this government and previous regimes in data management? Has the country not passed through these waters before, going by its experiences with the National Population Census, the National Identity Card Scheme and the Voters’ Register, among others? How well might the nation be said to have advanced in terms of data management? Is this census of the unemployed a contrived big joke waiting to happen?
In the last decade, the government spent huge sums of money for the National Identity Card scheme, which made provisions for the inclusion of employment status and other details. If the government was confident about that scheme, nothing stops it from extracting the required information from its database? Nigerians are concerned that the government’s desire to collate a figure of unemployed persons may end up as a project with huge financial outlay, and with little result on jobs creation. If there is any urgent need to conduct a census of this nature, the government should make use of the Ministry of Labour, the Office of statistics or create a register of unemployed persons from the local government, rather than commit it into a national project.
Employments are not generated by conducting a census of jobless people; rather they are created by sincerely carrying out the needful things that make the environment conducive for job creation. While it is appropriate for government to create an enabling environment for employers of labour, rather than being an employer of labour, a committed and result-oriented approach to addressing unemployment across the country should begin with the right mindset. This entails making first things first, and the rest will fall in line. To this end, the government needs to ensure adequate and optimum supply of electricity, and adopt a model of industrialization that creates highly productive industries with simple technologies. In other words, to generate employment, the government needs to create the enabling environment for industries, such as construction, manufacturing and large scale farm projects, to grow. This demands a concerted effort to revamp and empower small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by dismantling the bottlenecks and the needless bureaucracy that impede their survival.
Any employment generation scheme that discounts this consideration is lacking in depth, and does not mean well for the country. And that is what this present job-creation initiative suggests.
As is typical of ill-conceived government schemes that are publicized with exaggerated optimism, this proposed census of the unemployed is an outlandish economic gambit stringed to political partisanship. Irrespective of where the proposal emanated, it should be stopped before it becomes another celebration of graft and ineptitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment