The Nigerian Economic Society (NES) has expressed concerns over the low number of economists at the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment.
The President of NES, Professor Adeola Adenikinju during a visit to the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Professor Tunji Olaopa said the importance of economists in these ministries cannot be overlooked.
He said like the Ministry of Justice, he is not expecting to see more economists than legal practitioners, but Ministries that are in charge of the nation’s economy should have more economists employed to offer advice to the government.
“We are here to look at areas where we can work together. We have observed that even key ministries, like the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment.
“We did a study and found out that the economists in those Ministries and few, these ministries are supposed to be populated by economists. So, we think it is very important that there are some career levels that economists are supposed to occupy,” he said.
Professor Adenikinji said that their members can support the civil service in training civil servants and also conduct research to improve the working standard in the civil service.
In his remarks, the Chairman of FCSC Professor Tunji Olaopa commended NES for engaging key government agencies, especially the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in important conversations.
He said “Many however still argue that economists have been good at describing what is wrong and explaining what is happening, but less good at generating the evidence base needed to change things. This perhaps is a non-economist’s summation of the transition issues that we are trying to navigate at the moment.”
He further stated that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy has convoked a retreat of all the departments and parastatals in his ministry to deep-think the new eight redefined strategic policy priorities of President Bola Tinubu instruments to activate the performance bond signed by the key players in the policy space person
“We still have shared responsibility to reinvent some good practices of the good old days in government from the 1960s to the mid-70s. There is an ongoing reform effort to re-professionalize the economists and planners/planning cadre in the Federal service. The strong professionalism that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is bringing to bear on the national statistical system is already reversing the old reductionism where Prof. Wolfgang Stolper dismissed Nigeria as a nation that plans without facts is already happily receding.
“We however need to do more about building a data culture in Nigeria. My message to MDAs is that data culture is not about data collection, the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the data we collect. It is about encouraging and indeed making it mandatory for cross-functional teams to use data to inform their daily tasks, and creating data-driven plans, strategies, policies, goals and objectives.
“Which in turn is dependent on the strengths of monitoring and evaluation systems, policy-engaged action and policy research and change management capabilities in government
“We are determined at the level of the Federal Civil Service Commission, to reinforce this whole dynamic with redoubled drives to beef up the MDAs’ IQ by reinventing meritocracy even in the context of the implementation of the Federal character policy. Of course, we are also working to backstop this with the restoration of competency-based human resource practices in the Federal service,” he added.
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