WE WANT DEVELOPMENT NOW (DEC 7, 2010)

IT is not in contention that the global scene is characterised by huge disparities in the level of economic and social development and, by extension, varying levels in the standard of living of the people of individual nations.
While a number of factors usually combine to explain such a development, a key factor in this regard has to do with the quantity and quality of resources, including human and material, available to a nation and how and where such resources are exploited and utilised.
There are many nations on the face of this earth that are sitting on huge volumes of natural resources such as oil, gold, diamonds, etc and yet are tagged as poor, under-developed nations, with the standard of living of their people being nothing to write home about.
In recent times, the issue of the use to which we put our resources, including the new oil find, has engaged the attention of the nation, with the term ‘collateralisation’ gaining currency.
Only yesterday, we published on our front page the assertions of the former GIMPA Rector, Professor Stephen Adei, to the effect that collateralisation of the nation’s resources for national development was in the national interest and, therefore, the right thing to do.
We are sad that what should ordinarily have passed for a simple, straightforward issue of using national resources to help accelerate the pace of socio-economic development to promote better and more dignified lives for our people has degenerated into a partisan political matter and is posing a threat to the national interest.
This development particularly arises out of the bid by the government to effect amendments to portions of the Petroleum Bill which currently does not permit the collateralisation of the oil money for development.
It has been pointed out that the amendment being sought is for the collateralisation of a portion of the oil money, that is, about 70 per cent of what is expected to go into the Consolidated Fund, with the remaining 30 per cent going into the Stabilisation and Heritage funds.
One of the reasons advanced to seek to deny or stop the collateralisation of the country’s oil money is that oil is a non-renewable resource and that proceeds from it be largely put in a fund to cater for the needs of the future generations who may otherwise be denied such a benefit.
While it is true that oil is a non-renewable resource which will run out after a time, for which reason funds accruing therefrom must be judiciously utilised, the contention that a Heritage Fund be set up to hold the bulk of the funds for future generations is neither the most rational nor prudent way of utilising this important resource.
No one with a dispassionate and patriotic mind who has a true feel of the nation’s socio-economic developmental challenges will deny even for a moment that the country needs all the resources it can gather now to push for an accelerated infrastructural facelift to help improve the lives of our people.
It is common knowledge that millions of our people, especially those in the rural areas such as Otwebeweate in the Eastern Region and Asakai in the Western Region are condemned to drinking contaminated water infected with all sorts of parasites, pregnant and sick people being carried on poles for many kilometres in order to seek medical care, children, even in those urban centres, still learning to read and write under trees, of tens of thousands of people having no place to lay their heads and forced to sleep on the streets.
How can the government, in the face of these monumental challenges, stay away from using whatever natural resources it can get to accelerate the pace of infrastructural development in order to ameliorate the suffering of our people?
The state and the government have a bounden duty to secure the well-being of the people and whatever resources are available must be used now to answer the pressing needs.
It begs the argument to contend that if roads, bridges, railways, hospitals, schools, etc are built with oil money and other resources, collateralised or otherwise, it will only serve the interests of the current generation and not those yet unborn.
We are already late in building our infrastructure and need no further waste of time.
The time for accelerated infrastructural development is now, collateralisation or not.