From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has stated that about N350 trillion would be needed to secure Nigeria’s future in line with the National Development Plan (2021-2025).
According to the government the NDP would ease constraints hindering the economy from attaining its full potential, particularly in the product-mapping space as it will expunge obstacles to businesses.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who spoke during a special TV forum that examined binding constraints to the implementation of NDP, 2021-2025 recently in Abuja said the government would work to ensure it meets the target.
The meeting was attended by the Special Adviser to the President on Finance and the Economy, Dr. Sarah Alade; Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba and Permanent Secretary, Nebeolisa Anako. The TV forum was also featured the Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole; Acting Director, Macro-Economic Analysis Department, Felix Amaechi Okonkwo and an Economist, Dayo Alao.
Speaking at the occasion, Okonkwo said the NDP would be driven by the private sector with N300 trillion investment.
He said, “Let me just mention that this plan is different from other plans we have in the past, very different. It is going to be driven by the private sector. The funding, the investment size envelope of this plan is about N350 trillion, out of which the private sector is providing N300 trillion, while the government is providing N50 trillion approximately.
“The actual figure is N348 trillion but I just decided to round up the number. So 68 per cent of investment size of the plan is from the private sector, while only 14 per cent is from the public.”
For her part, Ahmed gave an insight on why the government decided to drive the NDP (2021-2025).
She said: “I want to place on record that this plan is sufficiently comprehensive with the capacity to attain various regional and global agendas including the AU Agenda 2063, the ECOWAS Integration Agenda 2050 and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
“In order to have the future we all desire, the plan is developed to play a sizeable role in the product complexity space internationally and also adopt measures to easing constraints that have hindered the economy from attaining its full potentials, particularly in the product mapping space.”
According to Agba, the plan was carefully done to ensure that it is not seen as an agenda of the President Muhammadu Buhari; Federal Government of Nigeria and All Progressives Congress.
He said, “We wanted the plan to be a National Development Plan where there is inclusiveness and participation and that no one is left behind. The plan itself is already running because the budget is derived from the plan. But again you know that, the plan sometimes cannot be so sacrosanct, you know there is also room for flexibility.”
“Some of the projections we made in terms of revenues, we are challenged this year when from the oil sector, there were so much theft coming on that the oil producers, that is the international oil companies had a short in production, so that affected revenue drastically.”
Alade also shed light on the contents of the NDP saying Volume Three is the legislative imperatives and reforms that government needed to do to be able to attract private investors and achieve relevant goals.
She said: “Instead of talking about rural development, we are doing a lot of regional developments and a lot of things. For instance, states can come together, instead of every state having a University, three Universities can come together, have a University and you have an international one.
“There is a deliberate emphasis on gender issues, women, people with special needs and the youths especially.
“There is a special emphasis given to youths to be employ and engage our youths in the development plan in the creation of jobs.”
According to Anako, the NDP (2021-2025) is currently Nigeria’s medium term development plan that has all stakeholders on board in its formulation.
“As the saying goes, if you don’t plan, then you have planned to fail. This National Development Plan sets out what Nigeria intends to do in terms of developing its economy for five years.
“18 laws and 10 policies were identified as being able to constitute impediments to the smooth realization of this plan.
“We set out what we intend to achieve in infrastructural development. For instance, the levels of infrastructure we need to attain, where we want to be in 2025, 2050 in line with the long term plan”, he said.
Oduwole said in designing the NDP, the private sector “looked through legislative framework, they looked to access to justice, the implementation and the application of those rules. They looked at the regulatory environment, administrative law, they looked at sub-national, all the state governments across the country and even to local government because the economy is one.”
Alao said the NDP is about everybody, adding that every citizen should take charge of developing the country.
“We are all tired of complaining about the same thing and then we need a whole orientation mindset change in Nigeria.
“You know it is not all about you and I, it is about us collectively looking at this plan, engaging adequately in the right way and trying to drive implementation for you and for the future of our country,” he stated.