President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan - Nigeria

Nigeria Paper

February 17, 2014

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM – A waste of time and resources

There is nothing more wasteful than doing diligently what should not be done at all.” President Jonathan took a plane load, or more, of people to Davos, Switzerland for what was billed as the World Economic Forum, WEF.

The entourage included several ministers, some governors, captains of industry and others too numerous to mention. Although it is billed as a global forum for tackling worldwide economic problems, it is nevertheless noteworthy that not all the presidents or prime ministers were in attendance. The reason is not difficult to discover.

The WEF had in recent years become a forum for the well-employed, well-paid and well-fed to gather and take care of their own interests – while pretending that they care about the jobless, the poor and those without hope.

Yet, the number of unemployed people globally has been increasing every year for over 10 years and the distribution of wealth has become increasingly skewed in favour of the wealthy and against the middle class and the poor.

Some of the reasons are clear. Virtually all the major multi-nationals in Davos were in search of nations where they would receive all sorts of heavy incentives before deciding to establish factories which are capital-intensive and employ few people – even though job creation was usually the reason for granting the concessions they were granted in the first instance.

Allied with that is the fact that increasingly, the jobs being created are service jobs and information technology oriented.

They generate very few jobs while yielding huge revenue to the shareholders. Meanwhile, technology is rapidly wiping out lots of jobs in every economy – from emerging economies to the most advanced and there is nothing the whole world can do about it. Two examples will illustrate the point.

Banking sector is shedding jobs faster than they can be created elsewhere and keen observers of the sector should be able to see it. First, the ATM reduced the need for tellers nationwide. At least 130,000 jobs were lost on this account alone and more are on the way.

Allied to the ATM is the widespread use of e-payment and the cashless economy. Again, more jobs are being erased everyday. It is estimated that a typical bank will need no more than 20 per cent of its current workforce to operate in less than 10 years from now.

Post offices worldwide and in Nigeria are also becoming major victims of technology among which are the e-mail, Facebook, twitter and other means of personal communications which get the message there faster and cheaper.

The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) can provide the official figures; but, whatever they are, they will most probably reveal the sharp drop in letters posted or registered, stamps purchased and vehicles needed to transport them.

Ten years ago, the NIPOST dreaded the Yuletide avalanche of greeting cards and other pieces of mail. Now, it wishes those halcyon days are back.

Now greetings are sent on the handset and few people even remember the location of the post office in their area. Since greeting cards account for a vast majority of the mail carried in the past by NIPOST, the decline in the use of cards had dealt a mortal blow to card manufacturers and most have quietly closed down.

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