Guest blog by Adesoji Adesugba
My participation in 2022 Implementing Public Policy was timely and rewarding. IPP is the second program under the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education series I have participated. The first was Leading Economic Growth, which I completed last December. The IPP program has exposed me to new policy ideas through shared knowledge, supportive learning and resourceful interactions with coursemates from diverse works of life and geography.
On my appointment as the Managing Director of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), I was faced with leading an Agency regulating non-competitive and inefficient Free Zones. My focus from the beginning was to assist in accomplishing the Federal Government’s objective of accelerating the country’s industrialization through the development of Zones across the country; in carrying out this task, I have met some stiff challenges, such as:
The absence of the expected synergy with other relevant government agencies and stakeholders impeded Nigeria’s free zone scheme’s development. Sister agencies such as the Nigeria Immigration, Federal Inland Revenue Service and particularly the Nigeria Customs are always working at variance with the concept of Free Zones. There is always this tendency by these agencies to extend fiscal and non-fiscal restrictions that are only applicable in the domestic territory in the Free Zone, thereby harming the government’s aim of accelerating industrialization through the Free Zone Scheme. Unfortunately, the legislative arm of government is not left without fault. In the pursuit of its oversight functions, some committees of the National Assembly conveniently forget why they enacted the Act to protect investments in the zones by often requesting the zones enterprises to be answerable to them without the due process of law.
Secondly, there is the challenge of inadequate funding for providing basic amenities such as power, water, roads (internal and external), and high internet service in the Zones. To ensure a shorter turnaround time for investors to commence their operations, adequate funding is required for modern Free Zone to adopt a “plug and play” status. turnaround time for companies to start up operations.
Another major challenge is the obsolete Act introduced almost three decades ago, which NEPZA operates with. In the Act, there is no provision of incentives that supports skills acquisition and technological transfer to the domestic market, nor for enterprises to drive backward linkages. For NEPZA to meet the operational needs of modern Free Zones, outdated laws need to be overhauled.
My participation in the program, especially the PDIA Triple A Change Analysis, provided me with novel public policy thoughts, which I have utilized to overcome some of these challenges and effect real change through successful policy outcomes. More so, the introduction to Rob Wilkinson’s 4P model of leadership was quite helpful. It changed and improved my approach to management, giving me a better appreciation of delegation and its various associated processes.
I understood the importance of having synergy with all the relevant stakeholders, and I achieved that through the stakeholder’s forum and engagements that I am promoting. It is a strategy of inclusion for improving my relationship with them. IPP taught me that the fact that the more people we have on board, in terms of implementers, users and beneficiaries, the more influence we have on the Authorizer.
Promoting and establishing the Nigeria Economic Zones Association was one of the initiatives I promoted with the main objective of providing a common platform for interaction amongst Free Zone/Special Economic Zone Operators and their relevant stakeholders in Nigeria. The Nigeria Special Economic Zones Security (NSEZSEC) Unit was also created in collaboration with the Department of State Services to tackle various forms of economic sabotage in the Free Zones. These were good entry point for me due to the fact that they conform to the PDIA Triple-A Change Space Analysis.
Through constant communication and engagements, a lot has been achieved in tackling our complex challenges and finding solutions. The establishment of a Stakeholders’ Association has been beneficial in this regard. I have expanded my Authorization and improved communication with peers and Authorizers, creating an avenue for one to learn from each order through constant peer reviews, thereby eliminating the opaque relationships that existed earlier. It has also helped me invade the unknown and get acquainted with new ideas for addressing more challenges.
I have also adopted provisional measures such as; a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to spell out modalities for operation and guide activities of conflicting parties where necessary. With that, new and improved relationships and partnerships are being facilitated with government agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Customs Service, Corporate Affairs Commission.
To fellow PDIA practitioners, I will say that we owe it to our various constituencies to use the knowledge we garnered and tools aimed to make a positive and lasting impact on numerous challenges of public policy implementation.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Implementing Public Policy Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Participants successfully completed this 6-month online learning course in December 2022. These are their learning journey stories.