FG To Make Agric Economic Mainstay – Minister

The Chairman, Senate
Committee on Agriculture, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has expressed confidence that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration will reposition the agric sector to become the mainstay of the nation’s economy.
Adamu (APC-Nasarawa West) made this known at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum yesterday in Abuja.
“Now we have reasons to believe that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is serious; serious because the President has said it time and again, since campaigning for presidency and at his inauguration and recently at the presentation of the budget proposals.
“He, Buhari, has emphasised on getting agriculture back on track and we believe him.
“He is a man of honour, we believe as most Nigerians have testified, he is a man with integrity.
“He is a man of his words and from the budget proposal in front of the National Assembly, one has reason to believe that he is serious, he wants to do something in the agricultural sector.”
Adamu said the foundation would soon organise a stakeholders’ workshop with the objective to contribute to the enhancement of the agriculture sector.
The senator noted that certain steps were taken in the past that brought agriculture to enviable height but lamented that those steps had been abandonment.
He noted that unless care was taken the good intentions of the president for agriculture could be derailed.
“There are those who are always walking from behind the scene; they can easily derail the efforts and commitment of the current administration.
“And in order to ensure that we guard against the possibility of that happening, we believe that we need the views of stakeholders in the sector.
“We have contributions we can make to ensure that this practice of government after government, coming and organising seminars and going is different this time.
“We have enough materials that we can go and hit the ground running.”
He said the workshop was opened to stakeholders in the sector to contribute their quota to move agriculture forward.
He said that the workshop would come up between February 2 and February 3 at the Shehu Musa Yar’ Ádua Centre, Abuja.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government, yesterday, ruled out increasing taxes as a way of offsetting the deficits in the 2016 Budget proposals presently before the National Assembly.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, said the government will rather concentrate on improving taxes’ collection.
Stressing that the government does not want to increase the suffering of Nigerians, the minister said the government is aiming to increase corporate tax and Value Added Tax (VAT) collections by at least 20 per cent.
He spoke with State House correspondents at the end of the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The minister was accompanied by governors Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), Willy Obiano (Anambra) and Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa).
Udoma said: “We expect about 20 per cent increase in VAT collection, which is conservative in terms of our revenue projections. We are expecting much more than that.
“With reference to the budget, one thing we are determined not to do is to cut any of those capital projects, because we need them to stimulate the economy. We are going to work with the National Assembly, to see how we can get savings.
“One of the areas we are looking at is our cash call elements.  The minister of state for petroleum is looking at how we can cut our cash call elements which is about N1trillion by innovative financing. So, he is discussing with some oil companies and looking for some innovative financing which might pick up some of the financing so that we reduce our financial output and contribution by the Federal Government,” he said.