The Minister of state for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, has tasked accountants in the country to take the front seat at efforts to promote probity and accountability in public policy conceptualizations, formulation, and implementation.
He urged members of the profession to support government reforms and initiatives aimed at bolstering transparency and accountability in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies and projects.
The Minister asserted that access to quality financial and economic information was an imperative while the ability of citizens to challenge and question irresponsible behaviour must be strengthened.
Agba spoke at the 27th annual conference of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
The themes of the conference were “Overcoming Challenges to Africa’s Development: Agenda 2063 in Perspective” and “Economic Diversification and Informal Sector Growth.”
The Minister said the themes were in tandem with the federal government’s efforts to reposition the nation’s economy, adding that these issues resonated with the government’s aspiration to restore the culture of development planning in Nigeria.
“Since inception, the current administration has consistently formulated national development plans and strategies to stimulate sustainable development and inclusive economic grow. Fortuitously, these plans have begun to produce the desired results characterized by the transition from dependence on one or a few commodities such as crude oil, minerals, and agriculture produce.
“Achieving economic diversification is a policy challenge in many developing countries, especially in Africa, and is associated with the process of structural transformation, which will ultimately unlock prosperity for all our people.”
Agba disclosed that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic activities and the downturn in global demand for crude oil, amid an oil glut, significantly impacted negatively on the global economy, including Nigeria, noting that the pandemic affected all sectors of the economy, including production, services, exports, supply chain, stock of foreign reserves and foreign investment inflows, and contributed to Nigeria’s second recession within four years.
“The pandemic further showed the vulnerability of Nigeria’s economy to external shocks due to our hitherto over-dependence on crude oil for Revenue and foreign exchange. There is therefore the need to sustain the diversification of the economy already achieved by this administration by leveraging on various growth sectors, strengthening linkages and enhancing value chain.”
He said this necessitated a National Development Plan 2021-2025, which is in alignment with all the regional agenda, including the AU Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.
He said the vision of the plan was to make Nigeria a country that has unlocked its potential in all sectors of the economy for a sustainable, holistic and inclusive national development.
“The associated broad objectives of the plan are to establish a strong foundation for a concentric diversified economy, with robust MSME growth, and a more-resilient business environment; to invest in critical physical, financial, digital, and innovation infrastructure; to build a solid framework and enhancing capacities to strengthen security and ensure good governance, among others,” he noted.
He maintained that the National Development Plan 2021-2025 had strategies to create the needed enabling environment for sustainable economic growth and development in Nigeria.
Accotding to him, the Plan, which was built on the experiences of the lessons learnt in the implementation of previous plans, is unique in many respects.
It contains three volumes. The Volume I contains the policies with targets and the required investment; Volume II has the costed priority programmes and projects; while Volume III is the legal and legislative imperatives, which include 18 laws that need to be enacted or amended and 10 policies for effective implementation of the NDP, 2021-2025.
The preparation of the Plan was not only participatory and consultative but inclusive, involving all critical stakeholders, including the sub-national governments.
The 36 states of the federation were each represented by two officers who served in the Technical Working Groups, Governors Forum represented at the Central Working Group and 6 Governors from the 6 geo-political zones representing Governors in the National Steering Committee.
He explained that the plan seeks to invest massively in infrastructure, ensure macroeconomic stability, enhance the investment environment and improve on the social indicators and living conditions of the people. “Specifically, the plan aims to generate 21 million full-time jobs and lift 35 million people out of poverty by 2025; thus, setting the stage for achieving the government’s commitment of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. The Plan will also address binding domestic growth constraints, improve Plan implementation majorly affected by political and policy changes, strengthen links between the Plan and the Annual Budgets, improve inter-sectoral collaboration, ensure harmonised efforts with states and create the enabling environment for increased private sector investment.
“The Plan will equally ensure concentric economic diversification, stimulate the manufacturing sector’s ability to increase the value chain and create jobs, increase product complexity and competitiveness, encourage massive investment in infrastructure and human capital development and adopt a pragmatic approach to fiscal management.
He, nevertheless, promised that the country could achieve these laudable goals by leveraging different sectors to unleash Nigeria’s potential for industrialization and sustainable economic growth and development, saying the implementation strategies focused on participation and effective Monitoring and Evaluation.
“To give vent to this, the Ministry has set up a Plan Implementation Unit, recently got FEC approval for the National M&E policy and developed the Eye Mark App (eyemark.ng) to harvest citizen’s feedback of project implementation across the country. We must, therefore, take advantage of the limitless opportunities provided in this Blueprint by effectively implementing the Plan.
“The synergy from all tiers of government and the private sector is required to achieve the laudable aspirations of the plan,” he emphasised.
He observed that to guarantee social harmony, this administration would sustain strong and real emphasis on equitable distribution of development benefits.
“It is only then that Nigeria will be on track to achieve the goals of our National Development Plans, the AU Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal,” he stated.
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