A CRITICAL APPRAISAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMME IN NIGERIA
Structural Adjustment is the Wrong Policy
F. E. Ogbimi* he incorrect perception of a problem can lead to the development of poor theories to solve it. This explains why, a decade after implementing Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) advanced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), many African countries have still not made measurable progress.
Africa is much worse off today than it was a decade ago because African economists and the world bodies have a poor perception of the African economic problem and so designed SAP—a program which cannot stimulate growth. Why do Structural Adjustment Programs lack growth elements and what should be done to stimulate rapid development?
Introduction
Most African nations are implementing SAP, an economic `panacea' inspired by the World Bank and the IMF. The objectives of a Structural Adjustment Program are largely the same for most African nations, because the world bodies presume that African economies are at the same level of development and are experiencing similar problems.
The stated objectives of the Nigerian SAP are to:
• restructure and diversify the productive base of the economy
• achieve fiscal stability and positive balance of payments
• set the basis for a sustained non-inflationary or minimal inflationary growth, and
• reduce the dominance of unproductive investments in the public sector.1
The corresponding program instruments include the strengthening of demand management policies, adoption of a realistic exchange rate policy through the establishment of Foreign Exchange Markets (FEM), rationalization and privatization of public sector enterprises, and the adoption of appropriate pricing policies for public enterprises.
Nigeria has implemented SAP for almost a decade now, but none of the objectives has been achieved,