LCCI wants law to drive policy implementation

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has called for policy implementation to complement the annual Appropriation Acts on national development plans to drive laudable economic policies.

Mrs Toki Mabogunje, President, LCCI, made the call during an interactive session with the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) on Monday in Lagos.

The session is with the theme: “Getting things done: Strategies for Policy and Programme Implementation in Nigeria.”

Mabogunje said laudable economic policies geared toward achieving inclusive economic growth for national development were being hindered by the absence of a strong implementation framework.

She noted that a major shortcoming of leadership in both public and private sectors was the quality of strategy and programme implementation, with its attendant implications for policy and strategic outcomes.

According to her, most often, strategies and programmes were excellent on paper but their translation into concrete outcomes posed to be very different.

“Nigeria since independence has been involved in the creation of national development plans to align government actions and programmes with specific national outcomes.

“We are generally not short of programme strategies and excellent policy documents, but implementation has always been the bane. Yet, a policy or programme is as good as its execution.

“As private sector players, we believe that good strategy implementation is critical for the creation of an enabling environment and the building of investors’ confidence.

“At a business level, strategy conceptualisation and effective execution is also very critical for firms to remain competitive and sustainable as a business.

“Stakeholder participation is also very critical to the success of project execution and so it is imperative to bring all stakeholders on board.

“It is also important to identify the key stakeholders that can make or mar any strategy or programmes either in the private sector or in the government sector,” Mabogunje said.

She, however, recommended clarity of strategies to all stakeholders, defined communication policy between the government and stakeholders, good performance management framework.

According to her, the lack of a defined communication policy to communicate government plans and actions have led to scepticism and negative perception regarding the government’s ability to deliver efficiently on its developmental plans.

“At the institutional level, currently, there is no constitutional requirement or specific legislation mandating monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities across all government bodies.

“We lack an institutional structure to promote M&E functions across government, therefore M&E functions are either non-existence or are of low quality.

“It is difficult to achieve desired results or get things done if there is no good framework for the measurement of results,” she said.

Dr Emmanuel Mamman, NIPSS Librarian, said the body would make a strong recommendation as regards effective monitoring and evaluation strategies to ensure policies and programmes implementation.

“Whatever programmes we come up with for them to be effectively implemented, there has to be a very strong M&E on ground to ascertain the programmes and policies implementation.

“We have chosen to come to Lagos because the state is doing very well in terms of policy implementation.

“We have seen it physically and before we leave, through our interactions with the various agencies, we will get enough information for writing our reports, ”Mamman said. (NAN)