In last week's column, I wrote about the “political economy” or the close relationship between political processes and outputs with economic variables. I will continue writing about it here.

The interaction between politics and economics works both ways. Politics affects economics and economics affects politics.

When political leaders decide to undertake projects they are influenced by economic factors like impact on the employment situation, agricultural and industrial production, investments, among others.

The decisions they make on the nature, location, and size of these projects would depend (supposedly) on their perception of that impact and whether such economic factors are to be given priority or some other consideration. This is a critical part of governance involving the use of funds.

Many such decisions on projects are difficult, if not expensive, to undo.

Projects which are not finished by a political leader might not be completed by other leaders. There are projects which turn out to have very little impact on improving the economic situation.

Projects which are unfinished and those with insignificant impact on jobs, production and income are, at the very least, a misuse of public funds. They represent lost opportunities to improve the economic situation.

That's why I am always in favor of a well-done feasibility study before a project is implemented, no matter how large or small a project is. The coverage and detail of the study will depend on the size of or amount needed by the project. The bigger the project cost, the more details would be needed to arrive at a reasonable and”correct” decision.

In this sense, political leaders must also be efficient managers of public funds.

It looks like this is an aspect of governance some of our leaders can still improve on.