Unleashing latent potential of social sector through funding
Most countries that desire growth is quick to point at huge spending on the provision of physical infrastructure such as roads and power as critical enablers for rapid economic development.
There may be some merits in this assertion owing to how such infrastructure serves as major attraction and enablement for investment in the real sector of the global economies. However, spending on the social sectors such as education, health and deliberate empowerment of the human mind towards unleashing latent potential hitherto undiscovered through adequate funding of research has proven to be more potent in repositioning countries on the path of sustainable development.
The seventh quadrennial national delegates’ conference of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), in Abuja, recently, sought to direct the Federal Government’s attention to the need to fund social sector for national development and sustainable job creation.
The immediate past President of the union, Chris Ani, urged Federal Government and the states to pay attention to funding of the social sector if Nigeria is desirous of pulling away from underdevelopment and other factors limiting its growth.
Ani spoke against the backdrop of the theme of the conference, “Funding education, health, research institutions, and other social services in a depressed economy: challenges and prospects.”
He explained: “NASU has played and continues to play a critical role in struggles aimed at ensuring that governments at all levels adequately fund educational, health and research institutions. We do this, conscious of the fact that the neglect of the funding of our public health and educational institutions is at the heart of endemic poverty among workers and the masses of this nation. Our public officeholders are no longer concerned with the state of public health and educational institutions, as they and members of their families have since lost faith in these institutions. They rather have opted to patronising privately-funded health and educational institutions at home and abroad at great cost to taxpayers of this nation. Also, at the heart of our daily advocacy and struggles are improved salaries, wages, allowances, and other conditions of service for our members as well as the security of their jobs.”
He also decried Nigeria’s over-reliance on imported goods and services, saying the practice is exacerbating the unemployment situation in the country.
“Over-reliance on imported goods has turned the country into a dumping ground for all manner of good, creating jobs for citizens of the exporting countries. Unfortunately, many of our youths that are adjudged employed are actually not gainfully employed.
“We are saddened that government officials continue to admonish youths on the need to de-emphasis the reliance on paid jobs and should embrace entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, these same officials fail to take cognizance of the fact that entrepreneurship can only strive when the government provides an enabling environment. We call on governments at all levels to take note that no nation can develop when its active manpower remain underutilised,” he added.
On his part, the General Secretary of NASU, Peters Adeyemi, hinted that the union chose the theme to draw attention to the dwindling standard of education, appalling health indices, and the parlous state of research institutions that should drive technological advancement of the country.
His words: “When we talk about social services generally, that is supposed to be one of the major cardinal objectives of governance. If adequate attention is not paid to social issues, then such a government has no business in government. Over a period of time, education in Nigeria has suffered from an acute shortage of funding. In fact, at a point we thought that the government would keep improving when it went up to 11 per cent. But alas, funding has been cascading in the last couple of years. Though the 11 per cent was not something that was big, but we had to celebrate that because prior to that time, the sector was getting five, six and seven per cent. All across major institutions in our country, critical infrastructure is decaying, which is one of the factors influencing brain drain especially the scarce-skill professionals.”
Adeyemi said it is unfortunate that Nigerians are migrating to smaller African countries in the sub-region, which is considered a slap on Nigeria.
He added: “Our people are leaving for greener pastures in Ghana, South African, and other African countries, which is a shame. In time past, the University College Ibadan that is today called the University of Ibadan was among the first 100 universities globally, but today, the same university will struggle to be named amongst the best 100 in Africa. The health sector has also suffered shortage of funds.”
By chosen the theme, Adeyemi submitted that the union is calling on government to pay close attention to the funding of social sector.
“Consciously, the union decided that we should use this theme to reawaken the consciousness of government with a view to letting them know, since they are pretending not know that the situation is not as good as they think. We must also understand that these institutions are suffering the way they are suffering, because those who occupy strategic positions in government that are in positions to allocate funds to these institutions have their children schooling abroad. Talking about the health sector, how many of them access health services in the country? Even our President, who should lead the change, is himself being in and out of medical facilities in London since he assumed office. His action is a clear passage of vote of no confidence on our health facilities. How many presidents in Europe and the Americas leave their countries to access medical services outside? This government must take conscious effort to develop at least one health facility in each of the geo-political zones of the country that will be up to international standards where the President and his family can access healthcare. That is how to build a country.”
Adeyemi argued that subletting the critical social sector to the private sector through the instrumentality of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model would amount to government abdicating its responsibilities to the citizenry.
“What will governments in the continent provide for its citizens if they are no longer able to fund social services adequately? It is clearly unacceptable that when politicians are canvassing for votes, they pledge adequate funding of social services such as education, water, and health, and they turn around to claim unavailability of fund when they get to power. Why are governments in Nigeria, other countries in Africa and in Arab countries declining to discharge their responsibilities to the people of their countries? Why? What is the essence of government? Why do people pay tax? We cannot encourage these ‘rascals’ to completely handoff issues of governance,” he stated.
According to the NASU scribe, good governance entails government improving the quality of life considerably, and if government hands over everything to the private sector, how can government be relevant to their people?
He submitted that just as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), is leading the struggle against privatisation in Nigeria, Public Service International (PSI) African Region, which he leads, would continue to tackle governments over the need to be responsible to their citizens and refrain from PPP model that has not improved the quality of lives.
His words: “So, our struggle in PSI against privatisation of social services is because it has not succeeded in some critical areas. Has privatisation not failed completely in the power sector in Nigeria? Has the provision of electricity improved in Nigeria since the power sector was transferred to the private sector? It has not been proven that the private sector possesses the magic wand to turn things around positively within a short period. Indeed, we, in the labour movement can say that most of the empowerment of the private sector was gotten from the public sector. Who are those people in the private sector? Are they not public officials that are masquerading as private sector or their cronies positioned in the private sector? When government was unbundling the power sector in Nigeria, didn’t they sell those critical assets to their friends that did not have the required industry expertise to run the sector?
“I think it is nonsensical, unreasonable and unsustainable and absolute madness for anyone to say that government should completely handoff education, health, water and other social services. How can they do that?”
Yet, Adeyemi insisted that Nigerians and indeed Africans are ready to pay for efficient and reliable social services when provided, saying: “Nigerians and other Africans have said that if there is stable power, good road network and clean water they are ready to pay for them. We are prosecuting these battles because we have witnessed the failure of some of these experimentations.”
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