Leadership (Abuja)
Justus Nduwugwe
31 October 2007
Abuja — The Debt Management Office (DMO), development partners and state governments yesterday brainstormed on how to pool resources required for the development of debt management units in the states.
The forum on sub-national debt management with development partners, held at the International Conference Centre, would try to reach consensus on establishment, nature and management of the sub-national debt management facility as well as institute a streamlined and well coordinated procedure for donor intervention in states.
Addressing the audience made up of top government officials, diplomatic community, bankers, the media and other stakeholders, the vice president and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of DMO, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, said that "now, the time is appropriate to scale up, consolidate and internalise the principles and practices of effective public finance management, including effective debt management, across all tiers of government".
According to the vice president, "moreover, the implementation of the seven-point agenda of Mr. President and the achievement of a 13 per cent annual growth rate of the economy, have minimum implications for the federal and state governments alike".
"First, those goals imply that resources have to be prudently used and that wastes and leakages must be reduced to the barest minimum. Second, they imply that there must be avoidance of major volatilities in public expenditures, such that the private sector will have an enabling environment within which to plan, invest and prosper the economy", he stressed.
He further said that "pooling resources and deploying them in a coordinated manner will among other objectives reduce the possibility of duplication of efforts by a multiplicity of development partners, which intervene independently in states".
In his words, the director general of DMO, Mr. Abraham Nwankwo, said that the facility will enable sub-nationals, "improve capacity for accessing and managing capital for development; improve capacity to appreciate market discipline, reporting requirements and fiscal transparency; facilitate financial market reforms; improve the health of the borrowing and lending environment; create a big market for credit providers and ultimately lead to improved balance sheet".
In his remarks, the mnister of finance, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, represented by the minister of state for finance, Mr. Remi Babalola, said that internally, the states are a major player in all aspects of our economic transformation.
According to the minister, "it is important to continue to emphasise that even though the constitution confers fiscal autonomy on the states, any fiscal slippages in the states would constitute a major risk factor to the achievement of macro targets. This, ladies and gentlemen, I believe, is the nexus between federal government's development objectives and effective sub-national debt management, which this forum is billed to address".
"The operators of the financial sector, which I reckon are ably represented here by Nigeria's banks and other financial institutions, are, by their nature as financial intermediaries, drivers of growth.
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