Absence of Economic Management Team caused policy dislocation, says Buhari’s Minister

The former Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mr Clem Agba, has identified absence of economic management team as responsible for Nigeria’s policy dislocations.

Agba also said he noticed the glaring lack of synergy amongst agencies of government during President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was traceable to the absence of the Economic Management Team (EMT).

BRANDPOWER recalls that ex-president Buhari had in 2019 replaced EMT headed by former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo with an Economic Advisory Council (EAC) under the chairmanship of Prof. Doyin Salami.

Agba, who however, explained the reasons for the noticed disagreements in policy implementation between Federal Government agencies, clarified that his ministry was not solely responsible for policy formulation.

According to him every ministry and MDA came up with their policies.

“But we had a laboratory in the ministry of budget and national planning where we could test some of those policies, doing some diagnosis.

“However, in some cases we never got those policies sent to us for review again before they were sent for approval to Mr President.

“And some times, those policies would been made before we got to know,” he said.

Speaking on the disagreement between the ministry of finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as regards the currency swap, Agba said “CBN is an autonomous body as a monetary agency”.

“We were the physical ministry; so, they didn’t necessarily report to the finance ministry. They reported directly to Mr President.

“However, there is what we call economic management team which was no longer in existence.

“That used to be the point of convergence for examination of  both the monetary and physical policies with the office of the Vice President chairing.

“So that with the physical and monetary agencies coming together and saying we want to do this or that, we can then look at the overall implication for the economy,” he said.

According to him, while the monetary policy might make sense in terms of growing the economy on one part, it might also be a net loss on the other part when you look at the total sum total.

“That is why it is good for both sides to be present to iron grey areas at the round table so as to look at the overall net effect.

“But if you are looking at the physical policy on one side without bringing the monetary policy into play, you might also see the policy showing growth, whereas the net for the economy is also negative.

“It was at the EMT forum that all policies were looked at and strengthened out. Unfortunately, it was no longer there,” he said.