While speaking at the expanded National Economic Council meeting, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, March 22nd, the founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, suggested that the Nigerian government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) identifies investing in the people as one of three strategic objectives.
He, however, pointed out that the execution does not fully reflect the people’s needs and prioritising physical capital over human capital.
“People without roads, ports and factories can’t flourish. And roads, ports and factories without skilled workers to build and manage them can’t sustain an economy.”
This statement has, however, been taken out of context by many respondents within the government and media establishments, with some interpretations that the Microsoft boss implied that the economic recovery and growth plan itself does not reflect the needs of Nigerians.
Particularly, Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State has faulted the statement, saying that it was wrong for Bill Gates to say that President Buhari’s ERG plan cannot solve the current problems of Nigerians.
He further went on to explain what he described as his own view of the plan and what State governments should do in support of the Federal Government plan.
“The plan has enough provision for human capital; it is a Federal Government’s plan. What is needed is for states to have similar plans as well as adequate provisions for healthcare and education because the bulk of the burden for healthcare and education really rests on states government.
“The disease burden of the country is largely at the primary healthcare level and this primary healthcare system is broken completely. We need to rebuild it. The United Nations recommends that we should budget at least 26 percent of our total budget on education, many state governments are doing that or near that.”
Meanwhile, from the statement of Bill Gates, there is no indication that he considers the plan lacking of sufficient provisions for human capital. Instead, what he focused his emphasis on was the need for a balance between the attention given to human capital and the attention given to physical capital seeing that they are both aspects of the country’s economy that cannot function effectively independent of each other.
What the response should have been was to provide a clearer explanation of how much attention the ERG plan focused on both physical and human capital.
Clearing the air
On his part, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, clarified the statement of Bill Gates, and provided a broader explanation of the issue. In a statement issued by his Media Adviser, Mr Akpandem James, the Minister stated that:
“A close reading of his statement shows that the point Mr. Gates was making was that the human capital development should have been explicitly indicated as part of the execution priorities of the ERGP.
“This is not the same as saying that the ERGP does not address human capital development. The Federal Government is committed to improving human capital development at all levels by deepening collaboration with the states.”
Facts and Figures
Senator Udoma Udo Udoma also established that the capital allocations to education, including the Universal Basic Education, in the 2015 Budget was N91.903bn and was increased to N112.54bn in 2016; N152bn in 2017; and N170.79bn in the proposed budget of 2018.
The Minister also established that in the health sector, while N22.67bn was provided in the 2015 budget for capital expenditure, the sum of N28.65bn was provided in the 2016 budget; N55.61bn in 2017; and N71.11bn in the 2018 budget proposal.
Simplifying what Human and Physical Capital is
Gate propose that like already identified in the Economic plan, Human Capital is very important. By Human Capital, he means things which are directly related to people like their education, their health and the opportunities available to them. This will mean for example that while building roads should not stop, building better Universities and training teachers should be given the same priority in execution (as it is in the plan). It also means that while power supply is essential, equipping hospitals and regulating food and drug should not be seen as being of less importance.
A government needs to build Airports but must not because of that forget it planned to provide support that will turn the cobbler into a massive shoe manufacturer. This idea is not exclusively Gates’. As a matter of fact, that was the topic of the meeting in which he said what he said. “Role of human capital investment in supporting pro-poor and economic growth agenda”.
