12/12/2023
Marvel Essien raises dust on 2024 National Budget....
Drives a new path in minimum wage conversation
Abigail Isaac
Recently, Mr. Marvel Essien joined the conversation on the 2024 National Budget and the new minimum wage expectations, even as the new minimum wage is slated to commence from 1st April 2024.
During the interview conducted by Uyai Aniekan on SpectrumTV's Rise and Shine programme, Mr. Essien scored the national budget above average, while expressing some concerns and reservations on areas related to taxation, allocations to health, education, debt servicing, recurrent expenditure, as well as plans of government to encourage public private partnerships (PPP) against the backdrop of the current wave of the falling Naira value.
In an analogy during the interview, Mr. Essien juxtaposed the 2023 budgetary exchange rate of four hundred and fifty Naira (N450.00) to one USD ($1) against the 2024 projection of seven hundred and fifty Naira (N750.00) to one USD ($1) to opine that it is a ruse for the Federal Government to claim any increase in the critical areas of the budgetary allocations.
He enumerated the critical areas to include education and healthcare, while expressing disappointment that the President failed in his promise to allocate 10% of the total budget to Health sector, but rather allocate a paltry 4.8% to such a critical sector.
Essien further opined that if government is to pay attention to productivity and the economic future of Nigeria, then the health of Nigerians and the Education sector that should drive research and development should be given priority in the national budget allocations.
However, he commended the overall concept of the budget, especially, the Macroeconomics gestures on interest rates and the government focus to bring down inflation rate, which is currently hovering around 27%, down to 21% while wishing that the budget will impact the Microeconomics level for individual businesses. Stating the need for government to address the menace of multiple taxation and stimulating the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) without which he wondered how else government hopes to increase Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) as encapsulated in the budget.
On the question of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), Mr. Essien expressed reservations on how the current state of the economy can effectively support this hope in the budget, given the current trend of the devalued Naira and its impact on businesses in Nigeria, especially, its impact on capital market.
He expressed further concerns that allocations in the budget do not seem to support investments given the high value placed on recurrent expenditures proposal in the budget and the whopping 45% of total budget allocated to debt servicing, which a further slice could have been placed on fertile areas for investments to boost productivity.
Essien expressed concern that if allocations were made towards critical areas to drive productivity rather than consumption, the renewed hope budget would have given Nigerians hope indeed.
He expressed hope that given the one billion dollar loans from World Bank and African Development Bank, respectively, that the foreign exchange market is likely to recover for the Naira to regain value in the foreign exchange market.
When asked by Aniekan what he thinks the expectations are regarding the new national minimum wage, Mr. Marvel Essien, who himself is a human resources strategist and organisation development consultant, emphasised the importance of understanding wages and salaries as investments against the regular perspectives of just as means of livelihood.
He explained that if salaries and wages are understood as investments, then questions on what values are brought to places of work to be commensurate with pay would form the bulk of the conversation.
"If understood in that context, then questions on key performance indicators (KPIs) of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) will arise as a conversation to determine expectations of the new minimum wage, hence, be analysed as part of the expectations of wages and salaries administration system in our public sector offices" he explained.
However, he opined that the conversation should stay on the cost of living indicators for now, given the peculiar situation of our public service and our evolving socio-economic circumstances.
The exposition on the new minimum wage was just about to begin, but the alloted time for the Rise and Shine programme on SpectrumTV did not permit. However, Mr. Essien has raised critical dimensions to the minimum wage conversation that suggests more focus on productivity. There should be more conversations in this direction.
