ABSTRACT
This research work, “A Critical analysis of the performance of the National Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDE) on the Nigerian Economy”, seeks to look at the major causes of Nigeria’s economic misfortunes and this is greatly attributable to the poor industrial capacity utilization, massive unemployment and underemployment, high rate of inflation, high poverty rate, poor wealth distribution, mono-cultural economy (oil), high rate of corruption, etc. The main objective of this research is to find out if NEEDS has made any impact on the Nigerian economy and to analyze such impacts. To achieve the above stated objectives a systematic research methodology was adopted. A good blend of research questions and hypothesis were used on the population In addition, the macroeconomic benchmark set for NEEDS for each year of its implementation (ie. 2004 – 2007) was compared against the actual outcome of 2004, to ensure compliance with plan. It was discovered that although NEEDS is the best available option to revive the collapsing economy, there are serious implementation challenges that may bedevil. Its implementation process. Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made amongst others;
i. The institution responsible for the implementation of NEEDS Should be headed by well-qualified citizens of Nigeria with remarkable integrity.
ii. The level of awareness/publicity of NEEDS is too low that over 70% of the country’s populations are yet in the dark about it.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Nigeria has an estimated population of about 125 million people and a land area of about 924 square kilometers, a large proportion of which is arable. It has large deposit of oil, gas and solid minerals and a sizeable educated and skilled workforce. Deposit these, the country has not been able to effectively harness its endowment to develop the economy sufficiently to improve the welfare of its people, with an estimated population growth rate of 2.8% and a GDP growth rate of about 2.5%, per capital income growth was negative for the greater part of the 1990s. Nigerian’s urbanization rate of 5.3% is one of the highest in the world, leading to loss of virile labour force for agriculture. Besides, the rate of job creation has been far less than the rate of growth of the urban labour force. This combined education system that is not attuned to the population of the appropriate manpower required to support robust growth has led to high levels of unemployment and underemployment.
Income distribution in the country is also stewed high such that probably less than 15% of the population actually benefits from the GDP growth. The country has a debt overhang of about US $30 billion with light servicing requirements. Currently, about 65.7% of the population lives below the poverty line, half of which probably lives on less than half a dollar per day. The situation rather than improve has been worsening over time. This has become a source of embarrassment for a country that is relatively so well endowed.
The weakness of the Nigeria economy in the past three decades is not unrelated to its dependence on oil as the mainstay of its economy. Indeed, the country is a textbook example of economy under the “Dutch disease” with its deleterious impact on the development or other aspects of the real sector. Oil currently is 90% foreign exchange earnings and about 75% of government revenues. It contributes about 3% of the available labour force. (Akpobash, 2004:2).
For several years therefore, the development challenge for Nigeria, because the diversification of the productive base away from oil. Successive governments took up these challenges in the design and implementation of several plans and policies. However, the attempts at achieving a more rapid growth of the industrial sector led to involve estimates in several projects, which turned out to be “white elephants”. The reason for this development is not far fetched as (Akpobasah 2004:2) rightly put it. Firstly, the capacity to design/execute such project was lacking. Secondly, the soft loans/funds required for sustaining the projects after inception dried up following the collapse of oil prices in the early eighties. However, there is an even more significant development resulting from the attempt to put the economy right. Governments inadvertently become the dominant force in an economy employing about one million people. The huge resource accruing to government turned into a centre for rent seeking and corruption. Though Nigeria’s rating in world corruption table is often contested, the government has acknowledged that the situation is sufficiently bad to warrant of frontal attack.
These provide the background for the recent launched economy reform agenda, the national Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). The Obasanjo’s regime has also taken other measures such as the establishment of an independent corrupt practices commission (ICPC), the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and a due process office to screen contracts prior to execution.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) came in to take over from the farmer structural adjustment programmes (SAP) which was introduced by the Babangida’s administration in 1986 which emphasizes deregulation and as he put it belt tightening. Oleka (200:54) said that the devil took over economy’s mechanism.
The National Economy Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) also intend to correct the negative impacts of the SAP on the country economic growth, which has led to an unprecedented social dislocation. For example, industrial capacity utilization has fallen below 40 percent and over 30 percent of these industries have shut down nation wide. The unemployment rate is now running at about 30%. This has been difficult to keep count of the galloping figures of inflation rate but they have ranged from 15-20 percent animally, in the last few years. Over 70% of the population is now living below the perverted, that less than 3 percent of the population now living below the poverty line. The reward system is now so grossly perverted that less than three percent (3%) of the population now controls over 60 percent of the nation’s wealth without adding any significant value to its productive base. The mono-cultural economy practiced by Nigeria [i.e. oil], has depressed other beneficial and elastic sector, as the economy now depends on oil as its major engine of growth and source of government revere. This and d the environmental degradation caused by oil extraction have caused a strain between the oil rest of country. Corruption has also done inalienable damage to the economy. In the last five years, government has not really implemented any of its budgets. The transparency international [TI] currently rates Nigeria as the third most corrupt country in the world, which to many observers is a gross under-assessment of the level of corruption that takes pale here. Therefore, the rampant outbreak of ethnic and religious violence are large attributable to the sharp decline of Nigerian’s economy and pervasive corruption in the society. [Umar, 2005:]. So, going by the above, Nigeria economic .problems can be summarized but not limited to:
(i) poor industrial capacity utilization
(ii) massive unemployment and underemployment
(iii) The rate of inflation is galloping freely.
(iv) Embarrassing poverty rate
(v) Poor wealth distribution/circulation system
(vi) Over dependence on the oil sector as the major source of foreign exchange and government revere
(vii) Outrageous level of corruption, e.t.c
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main objectives;
In this research work, the main objective is to ascertain if NEEDS has made any impact on the Nigeria economy and to analyses such impacts. Other specific objectives:
(i) To investigate how diligently the government has been keeping to its economics development roles.
(ii) To ascertain the condition of the Nigeria economy before the invention of NEEDS.
(iii) To examine how effective the several options that the government had employed to resuscitate the Nigeria economy were.
(iv) To critically analyses the features of NEEDS.
(v) To determine if NEEDS is a veritable tools to salvage the deteriorating Nigeria economy.
(vi) To assess the performance of NEEDS so far.
(vii) To examine the possible implementation challenges that NEEDS may encounter.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
(i) This work is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Accountancy.
(ii) This work will be an immense help to future researchers who will carry out their own investigations in this subject matter.
(iii) This work will not fail to assist the government in regulating the economy and serve as a guideline for future economic polices and development strategies.
(iv) This work will also help stakeholders [i.e. Nigerians] in understanding the working of the economy and how to better it.
(v) This work will be helpful in restoring or rather installing public confidence on NEEDS, encouraging people to support it through opinion pools, suggestions, and contribution by accepting the NEEDS as a gamine remedy to the current in conducive and in clement economic conditions.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTION
(i) Have you heard of the national economic empowerment and development strategy (NEEDS)?
(ii) How do you assess the performance of the Nigerian economy before the invention of NEEDS?
(iii) Since the invention of the 4year reform programmers in the year 2004 until date, has NEEDS created any reasonably impacts of the Nigeria economy?
(iv) How do you assess the role of government in the nation’s economic development?
(v) Have you felt any impact of NEEDS on the Nigerian economy since the invention of four year economic reform Package in March 2004?
(vi) What type of impact has been felt?
1.6 STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS
1.6.1 HYPOTHESIS ONE
The hypothesis used in this work adopted to check if NEEDS has really had any significant impact on the Nigerian economy. The adopted Hypothesis is as follows:
HO: NEEDS has no significant impact on the Nigeria economy.
Hi: NEEDS has significant impact on the Nigerian economy.
The above hypotheses were tested using chi-square approach.
1.6.2 HYPOTHESIS TWO: This hypothesis is use to assess whether the performance of Nigeria’s economy before the invention of NEEDS. was as expected.
H1: the performance of Nigeria’s economy before the invention NEEDS was as expected
HO: the performance of Nigeria’s economy before the invention of NEEDS was below expectation.
1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The area of this project is Enugu. The research is to determine if NEEDS can be used as a measure to buoy the sinking economy of Nigeria. The period under study is March 2004 to September 2005.
1.7.2 LIMITATIONS
In the process of carrying this study, the researcher encountered some problems, which include- finance: cost of access to areas where data are collected [i.e. Internet, libraries, banks, national planning commission, state secretariat, etc] was too high for a student. The negative attitudes of some CBN officials towards the disclosures of information were a limiting factor. NEEDS is a new programme and as such have not textbooks and a few articles written on it. NEEDS being new in Nigeria has not gained popularity and consequently offered only respondents to the questionnaires distributed. Finally, the time for data collection always clashes with that of attending lectures and pursing other academic and social endeavors and as such was a limiting factor.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
To study NEEDS properly, it is pertinent that we understand the words used in forming the name “National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy”.
Economic Development: According to ude and shaibu [2003:12], Economic growth is the increase in the quantity of goods and services produced in a country over a year or stipulated period. While economic development on the other hand is all about the maturity of the quality and quantity of goods and services produced in a country over a stipulated period usually a year going by the above definition, goods are products of the private sector [i.e. industries not under government’s control] or the public sector[i.e.) Industries under government control that are tangible], while services represents the products of the private or public sectors that are intangible or invisible e.g. Banking, insurance, warehousing e.t.c.
Empowerment: The Longman contemporary [1995:450] defined empowerment as to “give someone more control over his own life or situation.
[2] To give organization the power or legal rights do some thing.
Strategy: The same Longman [1995:1426] also defined a strategy as “a well planned series of action for achieving an aim, especially success against an opponent.
An amalgamation of the above heading reveals that NEEDS can be defined as a well- planned service of actions for achieving a maturity of quantity of goods and services produced in Nigeria by Nigerians.
This material content is developed to serve as a GUIDE for students to conduct academic research
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERFORMANCE OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (NEEDS) ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY>
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