APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The measures listed by the International Monetary Fund for Nigeria and other oil-producing economies should adopt to resolve their low crude oil production challenges is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Punch reports that the International Monetary Fund has listed measures Nigeria and other oil-producing economies need to put in place to resolve their low crude oil production challenges.
Disclosing this in its April 2023 World Economic Outlook with the theme “A Rocky Recovery”, the IMF said that countries that produce fossil fuels need structural adjustment in order to manage the impact of declines in fossil fuel production.
The fund also said that countries at risk of declining fossil fuel output also need to improve public finances and the quality of their institutions, diversify their economies, set up sovereign wealth funds, and facilitate the reallocation of production factors.
It also suggested that such countries needed to take the following action steps such as ameliorating the business environment to attract investment in new, productive, higher-value-added sectors, modernising infrastructure and attracting foreign direct investment in research and development, and improving the human capital stock of the labour force by investing in education.
The report read in part, “The pace and direction of the clean energy transition as well as the price outlook depend on the policy mix. This creates great uncertainty in countries that produce fossil fuels. If fossil fuel prices decline because of a climate policy mix that works mostly through the demand side, high-cost producers will need to shut down production.
“If those prices instead rise based on a climate policy mix that relies on supply cuts, local production declines will depend on domestic policy decisions. Climate policy certainty, at the country and global levels, could make adjustments more predictable and less costly.”
Data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission revealed that Nigeria recorded 1.26 million barrels per day of crude oil production, produced 63,756 blended condensates and 185,469 unblended condensates, making a total of 1,517,426 in March 2023.
The newspaper says that an umbrella body of Nigerian medical doctors and dentists practicing outside the country, the Diaspora Medical Associations, has petitioned the National Assembly over the bill seeking to compel medical and dental graduates to render five-year compulsory services within Nigeria before being granted full licence to practise.
The letter titled ‘Re: A position statement from diaspora medical associations – Bill seeking to restrict newly-qualified medical doctors and dentists from leaving Nigeria,’ was dated April 11, 2023.
The letter made available to The PUNCH on Wednesday was addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.
The body also copied the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Dr Ibrahim Oloriegbe; and the Chairman, House Committee on Health, Dr Tanko Sununu.
The letter was signed by the President, the Nigerian Doctors’ Forum, South Africa, Dr Emeka Ugwu; the President, Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas, Dr Chinyere Anyaogu; the President, Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain, Dr Chris Agbo; the President, Canadian Association of Nigerian Physicians and Dentists, Dr Nnamdi Ndubuka; and the President, Nigerian Medical Association-Germany, Dr Al Amin Dahiru.
The DMA said the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (Amendment) Bill sponsored by Ganiyi Johnson, which passed second reading at the House of Representatives last week, was counterproductive and would not achieve its intended goal of addressing brain drain in the country.
The associations also said that focusing on one aspect of a problem without taking a holistic approach to a sustainable solution would be ineffective.
The Guardian reports that the Senate has sustained the Indictment of Accountants of the Federation for paying N74 billion as social benefits without a breakdown in the 2016 budget.
The Auditor General of the Federation in the 2016 report had raised concern over the payment of N262.4 billion as social benefits against the N188 billion provided for in the budget resulting in extra-budgetary payment of N74 billion without breakdown.
The query reads” The total cost for social benefits amounted to N262.3 billion whereas the budget amount for the period was N188 billion as contained in the budget report, resulting in the extra-budgetary expenditure of N74 billion.
“In addition, it was observed that there was no breakdown of the total social benefits cost of N262 billion to disclose the different individual amounts for gratuity, pension and death benefits that make up social benefits.”
When the representative of the Account General appeared before the Senate Public Accounts Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Urhoghide to respond to the query, the Accountant General accepted the observation of the Auditor General.
The Committee observed that the Accountant General could not address the query.
The Committee, therefore, recommended to the Senate that the Account General should refund N74 billion in line with Financial regulation.
The Senate adopted the recommendation of the Committee for the refund of N74 billion to the Federation account.
The newspaper says that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning is expected to spend $53 million on hiring staffers, office administration, committee overheads and other logistics such as training and workshops out of the $800 million the Federal Government has secured from the World Bank to mitigate the effects of petrol subsidy removal on vulnerable Nigerians.
The agreement between the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the International Development Association (IDA), the concessional lending arm of the World Bank Group, seen by The Guardian yesterday, spells out how the money will be expended to execute activities that would make the project implementation seamless.
Nigeria’s special drawing rights (SDR) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) totals 565.3 million, an amount deposited as collateral at the IDA to access the concessional facility of $800 to fund the subsidy removal palliatives as well. This implies that for every unit of SDR entitled to, the country gets approximately $1.415 in loan.
In line with the executed document, $747 million or 93.4 per cent of the total sum will be disbursed to beneficiaries, while the balance will go into federal and state bureaucracies and logistics to be set up to the satisfaction of the IDA.
The agreement says the Federal Government will establish a National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), which means doing away with officials of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs already trained to carry out such tasks. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs presides over NASSCO national management team.
The document also details terms of the loans, interest rate and repayment schedules, which will spread till 2051. Apart from NASSCO, the National Steering Committee (NSC) is expected to “have been duly established” to ensure the effectiveness of the project, as stipulated in the agreement.
The loan conditionality leans heavily on logistics in the implementation phase with a National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO) in place throughout the implementation “with functions and resources satisfactory to the Association (lender), and with staff in adequate numbers plus terms of reference, qualifications, integrity and experience satisfactory to the Association.
“The NCTO shall be responsible for, inter alia, managing the implementation of parts one and two of the project in collaboration with the participating states,” it adds.
GIK/APA