…Plans Statistics Bureau

Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi said a bureau of statistics which would assist in policy formation and implementation would soon be established in the state.

Governor Amaechi disclosed this yesterday during the flag-off of the state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) computation in Nigeria at the Rivers State House of Assembly, Port Harcourt.

Represented by his deputy, Engr Tele Ikuru, the state chief executive said the state had already passed into law, a bill intended to establish the Bureau of Statistics, stating that statistical determination of a state’s GDP would facilitate its policy implementation and planning on the welfare of the people and show how it has been able to equitably distribute its wealth among them.

He noted that Rivers State has been making efforts on keeping the statistical data on human development index and domestic product production, pointing out that the state was ranked highest in the country on human capital development in 2007 and would ensure it maintained this lead.

In his speech, the governor of Niger State, Dr Mu’Azu Babangida-Aliyu, represented by his deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Musa Ibeto expressed delight in being part of the occasion and described it as a milestone in the annals of Nigeria’s economic development, stressing that it would enhance the states’ resolve at adopting “evidence-based practices towards the economic transformation of the nation”.

Also speaking, the Minister of National Planning and Deputy chairman, National Planning Commission, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman commended Governor Amaechi for ‘his disposition and commitment to national development, explaining that the state measures the economics activities of the state and the nation at large. He said that  the computation was on national basis but that the commission had deemed it necessary to encourage the states to ascertain the appropriate data on GDP.

In their separate speeches,  the Central Bank Governor, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido, and the Secretary to the National Planning Commission, Mr Fidelis Ugbo stated that the flag-off was to provide opportunity for all stakeholders to share experiences on good practices in the computation of state GDP and to encourage state governments on the implementation of the programme.

Earlier, the state commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr Levi Gogo Charles  said that the computation of the state GDP is critical to the trapping of every activity of the peoples of the states which had been left out in the calculation of national GDP over the years, adding that the programme is a good strategy in repositioning the economic development of the nation.