National Assembly members support economic recovery plan – Udoma

National Assembly has thrown its weight behind the national Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government, and in line with this, the Assembly members are working hard to see to the passage of the 2017 budget to strengthen the implementation of the plan.
“Indeed, the 2017 Budget proposal was based on the plan. Once the budget is passed we will be able to fully implement all aspects of the Plan. Members of the National Assembly have shown great understanding of the situation in the country and they are working hard to see that the 2017 Budget is passed soon,” Udoma Udo Udoma, minister of budget and national planning, said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, scheduled to be published tomorrow.
The ERGP is a medium-term plan starting from 2017 to 2020, the minister said, saying the plan focuses on achieving three broad strategic objectives, which are to get the economy out of recession by restoring growth, investing in the Nigerian people and building a competitive economy.
To restore economic growth, the Plan seeks to first stabilise the macroeconomic environment and restore investors’ confidence in the system. The next is to change the mono-product nature of the economy to one that is more diversified, particularly in the sources of foreign exchange earnings.
The overall target is to achieve a growth rate of seven percent by 2020, driven by a strong non-oil sector. The ERGP thus has the dual goal of identifying short-term recovery initiatives that can quickly get the country out of the current recession as well as launching the country on a growth path to sustainable development.
He explained that with strong economic growth, the country would be able to see to the improvement of the social wellbeing of the people, which is the ultimate aim of the Buhari administration.
“The ERGP therefore also focuses on investing in our people by improving their access to education and healthcare, promoting social investment and creating jobs. In addition to a number of other indirect jobs envisaged, the target is to create over 15 million direct jobs during the plan period with particular emphasis on youth employment,” he said.
To build a competitive economy, the ERGP accords priority attention to accelerating key infrastructural development as well as improving the ease of doing business across the country. Already, there is Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, which has been working hard on this.
The target is to be within the first 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index by 2020 from our current level of 169. To do this, not only must we fix our infrastructure, but we must also ensure that our regulatory processes are more efficient.
The minister also assured that the “Plan is the route out of recession and onto a path of growth. We have been working throughout 2016 along the lines set out in the Strategic Implementation Plan to drive interventions in critical sectors. We have been focused on restoring oil production in the Niger Delta (which has now risen to 2 million barrels a day).
We have established the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), which is working on removing obstacles to business success. The Council is already achieving some visible results. We have set up a number of task forces in agriculture, including a task force on rice. And we are seeing improved production in agriculture. We have seen this reflected in the slight improvement in GDP performance in Q4 2016 and we believe that the impact will be felt progressively throughout 2017.”