Executive orders are presidential directives to MDAs to address issues that the administration considers urgent and of high priority in its effort to impact the socio-economic life of the people. They aim to fast-track the governance process with the main purpose of achieving quick and immediate results.

      Executive orders come in handy in emergency situations and enable the President to raise capital and other resources needed to tackle the emergency without having to go through the often rigorous and cumbersome process of parliamentary approval. The whole essence is to ensure that the President is not rendered helpless in any situation that might crop up in the course of running the affairs of the state. As the buck stops at his/her desk, so must the President have enough options and latitude to deal with situations promptly and decisively.

      On economic matters, it can provide the platform to harness resources across the entire spectrum of the national economy and channel same to specific sectors to achieve a certain target. It is a very functional tool in the management of the economy in particular.

      Since the inception of the present administration, it has issued a raft of executive orders with which it has tried to tackle some burning issues in the country. One good example is the executive order issued to address the challenge of the ease of doing business that has been a major factor militating against direct inflow of foreign investment to the economy. Following the successful execution and implementation of the executive order on the matter, Nigeria moved 24 places from her position of 169 in 2016 to 145 on the global index on the ease of doing business, according to a World Bank report.

     Without prejudice to other executive orders by this administration, I consider the Executive Order 007 on infrastructure development a game changer that will fast-track development in the sector. Nationwide infrastructural deficit has been the bane of our development for the past decades. Our national infrastructure has been in a state of decay for too long a time, stifling the growth of other sectors of the economy. Infrastructure is the catalyst for the transformation of any nation to a modern economy able to compete globally.

      No country has succeeded in creating decent living standard for its citizenry without the basic infrastructure of power, railways, roads, irrigation, dams, etc. They are the imperatives for economic development and the driving force of key performance indicators for economic projections and growth trajectory.

       It is, therefore, commendable that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has virtually declared a state of emergency in the sector and is according high priority to provision of basic infrastructure by adopting creative measures in solving the problem. To build infrastructure requires huge amounts of funds. Experts in the sector put the annual capital outlay to close the infrastructural gap at a whopping $20 billion. 

     Executive Order 007 is aimed at providing alternative sources of funds for the development of infrastructure outside the normal annual budgetary provisions. The executive order is to grant tax credit to corporate investors or organisations and companies in return for them to use their private fund to build roads that are valuable to their business operations. This is based on the demand for road projects by corporate investors who are willing to deploy their own working capital and financial resources to fund road projects located in major economic corridors of the country where they have significant business operations and interest.

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      I call it a game changer because it is a win-win situation for all the parties involved in the scheme. By granting the investors tax credit, they are able to mobilise enough funds to execute road projects that will add value to their business, which, in turn, will translate in increased profit for the corporate investors. Government, on the other hand, is saved the money and other resources that would have been expended on the same projects, which it can now deploy to other sectors of need. The general public is the ultimate beneficiary as the provision of roads improves the standard of living for everyone.

      To pilot the scheme on tax credit, six private sector players in the construction industry would participate in the executive order implementation. They are Dangote Industries Ltd, Lafarge Africa Plc, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, Nigeria LNG Ltd, and China Road & Bridge Corporation Nig. Ltd. The investors will be investing in 19 eligible road projects totalling 794.4km, which have been prioritised in 11 states across each of the six geo-political zones. In addition to tax credit to the private sector investors, Executive Order 007 also provides mechanisms for groups of investors to pool funds to invest in road projects directly or jointly through special-purpose vehicles or in collaboration with institutional investors such as pension fund administrators, collective investment schemes, insurance companies and investment banks.

     This is a new investment frontier for the private sector, where they have the opportunity for investment in road projects and also have access to credit facility with which to fund the projects.

The ball is now in their court and it remains to be seen if they will take up the gauntlet.

      There has to be a well-established operational framework under which such a mandate can be executed. MDAs that are involved in the execution of the order must be made to retool their processes and align same to the objective of the mandate. Participating MDAs are expected to interface with each other in collaborative effort to achieve the necessary synergy for the seamless operation of the general administration of the executive order.

      IT (information technology) is key in the effort to execute the mandate of the order, where manual and analogue methods to data handling are discountenanced in favour of digital data processing to ensure data accuracy, acquisition and analysis.

• Agbachi is a public affairs analyst based in Abuja. Phone: 09095233277, 08059896223.