By Sheriffdeen Tella
The COVID-19 has thrown up many things, particularly the nature of our underdevelopment. The lockdown has made it imperative for people to sit at home and watch television, get glued to their telephone set and observe their environment many times over. Watching television has shown the major differences between organised societies as exemplified by developed economies and disorganised societies like ours, particularly in the way food are prepared for distribution and the actual distribution; the organised supermarkets as different from Kubwa market in Abuja or Oyingbo market in Lagos; and at the institutional level, how interventions are carried out for businesses in organised or formal business environment unlike a highly informal society that we run in this clime.
Underlying all these differences is the issue of data availability in the two types of societies whereby one society can get all data required with a tap or press of button on a computer where the data sets have been processed and stored, and the other society where the same activities are run on guess work. It is lack of data, either accurate or appropriate, that makes government feel that those who have less than N5,000 in their bank account are the poor ones. Data would show the proportion of Nigerians that have bank account as against those who do not have. That the proportion of those who have bank accounts is relatively low when compared with some emerging economies. The poor ones do not have and cannot afford to have bank accounts because they spend as soon as they get any amount. Those who have bank account in most cases do not have one account! So, using possession of bank account to reach the poor can be found in the fallacy of data acquisition. Processed data will show all required information, characteristics and anomaly. The opportunity to correct the data anomaly in the developing countries opens itself with this coronavirus pandemic.
Either in the distribution of foodstuff or interventions in the informal sector businesses, it is clear that the local government, the third-tier of governance in the Nigerian constitution, is nowhere mentioned. Yet, it is supposed to the closest level of governance to the public and the tier that can do and achieve a lot of things including grassroots mobilisation for the economy. Why then is money allocated to the local government if it has no role to play in governance? Many states are involved directly in distribution of consumer goods to local government areas and wards. In most states, streets are not identifiable by signposts or any other identity just as houses are not appropriately numbered. Even where the houses have numbers, these are not clearly and cleanly displayed. If the local governments are involved, the directive can be passed down and monitored that each house is properly identified by proper numbering while local government officials carry out street naming, labelling and other streets identification. This is the opportunity to carry out such exercise as we may find out that even officials of local governments do not know all the streets in their areas and only the residents who are now locked down in their homes and available would assist them in the identification.
Proper identification of residence and streets assists in present and future planning by states, local governments and even non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or civil society organisations (CSOs) engaged in organisation and development. Attracting local and international financial intervention or support for businesses can be enhanced by proper spatial planning presented on area and street maps. Foreign investors in particular are attracted by such planning where they can identify the locations of beneficiaries of their intervention on maps or the Internet without getting to the country, the state or the local government area. This is why most interventions by these foreign organisations go to Lagos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt or other big cities with appropriate mapping and manageable data sets, whereas the same assistance would have been more beneficial in states with large number of semi-urban or rural areas.
With appropriate and adequate data set, States can start planning decongestion of highly congested communities, development of new cities and towns, identification of present and future infrastructural needs such as schools, hospitals, water, electricity, transport system, etc. Socio-economic planning for states and local government are made with ease just as implementation of development programmes as carried out without stress and in organised manner. The present situation in which distribution of COVID-19 palliatives are done haphazardly and with rancour would have been eliminated if we have proper data set and appropriate planning on areas to cover, households in each area and family members in the area. Some professionals have associations with some sort of data set that can be obtained as baseline information. The need to register such associations and obtain membership data is quite germane for planning. Even the so call illegal sex workers have association and probably information that can assist in dealing with their peculiar profession. They need to be recognised and registered so that those who need help among them can be assisted by some NGOs openly. We cannot continue to live in denial of their existence; after all betting and betting businesses are recognised and registered in many States and both are expected to pay taxes.
The COVID-19 should be seen as a global war and post-war situation will arise globally after the pandemic is over. What will be our reactions and benefits during the war, which can guide us towards path of growth and development after the war? We need to seize this opportunity to develop data set for specific and all purposes now and particularly in the future. For example, if we have data on household spatial concentration and distribution or houses in particular streets, particular area or jurisdiction; average family size by location or area, et cetera, the issue of distributing money through banks will not arise. Rather, products are distributed. This takes care of both production and consumption at the same time and both are essential for economy to grow. As products are being purchased for distribution, the producers of such products become engaged and empowered financially to invest and produce more. Some people, in the processes are able to keep their jobs, even if new hands are not employed. On the consumer side also, people are able to keep body and soles together, remain healthy against the disease and ready for job anytime the pandemic allows. If money is given to the poor, as we propose, they can keep such money and spend intermittently since they do not know when such largess will come their way again. I understand that in some cases, people were asked to fill forms in the distribution processes. Such forms, no matter how badly filled or crookedly manipulated should be part of the instruments to be used as estimates in the baseline data, since there might be some pertinent information for future use.
The informal sector in Nigeria is not only huge in terms of size, volume of transactions and distribution but also in terms of income and employment being generated and tax avoidance or evasion. I make bold to say that all the data sets we parade on the informal sector are mere “gestimates” and we have to again, seize the opportunity of this ‘war’ to upgrade whatever data set available. The need for financial intervention in the sector is imperative if it is continue to play major roles of income and employment generation in post-COVID-19. But how would the government be able to do this without data? With the promise of the financial intervention, which of course must be fulfilled, many of these businesses will be ready to register their presence. The initial registration can be done online, even on handset through developing appropriate app where forms can be down loaded and completed forms uploaded. Verification of the information can then be done after the lockdown in States where lockdown operate. The forms for data gathering will be designed in simple but with comprehensive data requirements. While the data can serve the purpose of assisting in the informal sector palliative intervention for now, it will in future, serve the purpose of planning when it comes to identification or registration, location or relocation, categorisation or reorganisation into sub-sectors, taxation or revenue collection and projections, and such other institutional buildups. Some of these businesses can serve as the industrial base in some States when the figures are analysed. This is because, these informal sector business owners do establish on the basis of the needs of and/or availability of raw materials or service requirements in the community where they are located. So they can provide unsolicited vital information to governments in the local areas.
Of course, data collection requires lots of financial involvement but the benefits of such definitely outweigh such financial commitment. States and even the federal government need to invest in data collection without waiting for international support as we usually do. Sometime we see the World Bank, IMF and European Union, African Development Bank or such organisations displaying specific country data in their reports and we wonder where those data were coming from. They are mostly genuine primary data collected for them by citizens of such country. In most cases, they use academics either directly or with the support of their students to collect such data coordinated by, for example, the World Bank’s Country Office. Such assignments are heavily paid for in order to get data based on commitment, dexterity and specialisation. This implies that the Nigerian government must fund National Bureau of Statistics to be able to engage specialists in data collection and data mining for processing and safe keeping. The States and local government should engage the tertiary institutions within their jurisdiction to assist in data gathering, mining, processing and analysis. Once the baseline data sets are collected, the requirement in future will be updating such data which will be less cumbersome and with little financial investment. Let us seize the opportunities offered by COVID-19 to start doing things differently, properly and in conformity with the global best practices. Whatever we wish to do differently has to be backed up by trusted data sets.
Tella is a Professor of Economics, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye
