Private sector operators have advised the Federal Government to come up with workable strategies to implement the Nigerian Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (NERGP) to achieve its objectives.
This is contained in a statement signed by the Media Adviser to the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr Akpandem James in Abuja, yesterday.
According to the statement, the private sector operators gave the advice in a consultative forum on NERG presided by the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
The NERGP is a follow-up to the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) which was a short term economic plan to drive the implementation of the 2016 Budget.
On the SIP, government promised that it would deliver a more comprehensive economic recovery and growth plan subsequently.
The plan is expected to be formally inaugurated by President Mohammadu Buhari within the month.
The operators advised the government to put in place effective monitoring and evaluation mechanism to achieve the results of the plan.
They said that the engagement of key stakeholders in the development process of the national economic plan showed a genuine desire to rapidly grow the economy.
They added that past development plans were rendered useless by either lack of, or poor implementation.
Meanwhile, Osinbajo assured that government was determined to put back the economy on a sound footing through diligent implementation of the recovery and growth plan.
In the short term, the acting President said that government had intervened in several ways to mitigate the sufferings of the people, including giving bailouts to State governments to enable them pay salaries of workers.
Also speaking, the minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma said major emphasis would be on implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the plan.
Udoma said that the government planned to set up a specially staffed Delivery Unit to drive the implementation of the plan.
The minister said that 12 out of the 59 strategies had been prioritised based on their importance to the success of the plan.
He listed the areas as restoring oil production to 2.2mbpd and reach 2.5mbpd by 2020, privatise selected assets, accelerate non-oil revenue generation, drastically cut costs, align monetary and, trade and fiscal policies.
Other areas he said would be on expanding infrastructure, especially power, roads and rail, revamping the four existing refineries, improving ease of doing business and expanding social investment programmes.
Udoma added that the government would focus on delivering on agricultural transformation and accelerating implementation of National Industrial Revolution Plan using Special Economic Zones.
He said that the government would be focusing on priority sectors in order to generate jobs, promote exports, boost growth and upgrade skills.
Udoma said that the 2017 Budget proposal reflected many of the reforms and initiatives in the NERGP.
“The 2017 budget is designed to expand partnership between public and private sector as well as development capital to leverage and catalyse resources for growth.
“In this regard, the budget makes provision, among others for N100 billion contributions to a privately-managed Social Housing Fund, N50 billion contribution toward development of Special Economic Zones, N12 billion counterpart funding for the 2nd Niger Bridge.’’