Delay of Ministerial appointment... As investors express their worries

Delay of Ministerial appointment: As investors express their worries

The failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a cabinet is taking its toll on key sectors of the economy, The PUNCH investigations have revealed.

Investigations by our correspondents showed that the non-appointment of substantive ministers for key positions in government is having a negative impact on the confidence level of both local and foreign investors in the economy.

It was learnt that the majority of investors who had indicated interest in investing in Nigeria shortly after the inauguration Buhari as Nigeria’s President have not been able to seal any deal owing to the absence of a cabinet.

Investigations revealed that a lot of investment pacts that ought to have been sealed have been left pending owing to the absence of a cabinet.

For instance, a top government official confided in one of our correspondents that the previous administration had already secured a pipeline investment of $60bn from various investors in key sectors of the economy, noting that all what is needed now is an implementation of the pact.

Findings at the Ministry of Finance also revealed that the absence of a cabinet is also affecting the implementation of the 2015 capital budget.

It was gathered that the drop in revenue owing to the decline in oil prices has made it difficult for the ministry to release fund for capital projects.

An official in the ministry confided in one of our correspondents that many of the contract files that ought to have been treated could not be financed.

The official said what the ministry is currently doing now is to ensure that government stays afloat until the constitution of a new cabinet.

The 2015 budget signed by former President Goodluck Jonathan was passed on April 28, following the passage of the same bill by the House of Representatives on April 23, with an expenditure outlay of N4.493tn, up from the N4.425tn proposed by the Executive.

The Senate, in passing the budget, slightly reduced the N2.607,601, 000,300 proposed by the Executive to N2.607,132,491,708 as recurrent expenditure and simultaneously scaled down the capital expenditure from N642,848,999,699 estimated in the proposal to N556,995,465,449

Investigations by our correspondents showed that at the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, activities were being grounded by an air of uncertainty over the direction and priorities of the Buhari’s administration.

Coupled with the inertia in several MDAs is also the sense of austerity that had been ushered in with the declaration of the new administration that it met an empty treasury.

The situation is compounded by the fact that prior to the advent of the new administration, governance had been put on hold for the first five months of 2015 as the last administration headed by President Goodluck Jonathan had vigorously faced politics.

Investigations showed that some MDAs that depend on budgetary allocation had been grounded to a halt until last week when the President ordered the release of overheads that had been due to them since the first quarter of the year. The issue of capital budget implementation had totally been out of the equation.

Although the permanent secretaries have been asked to take charge in the absence of ministers, our correspondent report that there are implementing boards and bodies that are statutorily chaired by ministers.

One of such bodies is the board of the Universal Service Provision Fund. The USPF established by the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 implements projects aimed at bridging the communication gap in “unserved and underserved communities.”

The board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation which was recently dissolved by Buhari is another one.

The absence of a cabinet is also affecting the privatisation sector. Although the Vice- President chairs the National Council on Privatisation, the majority of the members are the cabinet ministers. The council which has yet to be constituted has the power to approve most of the activities of the Bureau of Public Enterprises.

But the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, in an interview with one of our correspondents, said the present administration was still busy cleaning the rot it inherited from the past administration.

Adesina said Nigeria would benefit more when the President forms his cabinet on a clean foundation rather than doing same on a rickety foundation he inherited.

While saying that forming a cabinet is constitutional, he assured Nigerians that Buhari would obey the constitution by forming his cabinet soon.

“The clean- up is ongoing. Let that clean- up be done, then the cabinet will come. By that time, deals that are sealed will serve the country and the investors better,” he added.