Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba said that the National Development Plan (NDP) 2021- 2025, recently approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), focused on technology to drive the nation’s industrialisation agenda.
Speaking on “Good Morning Nigeria,” a programme by the National Television Authority (NTA), Agba stated that the plan, structured on seven prospects, was to replace other plans.
According to the minister, the plan anchored on economic growth and development, infrastructure, public administration, human capital development, social development and regional development, would be driven by technology to achieve national development.
According to him, “we are using technology to drive what we are doing, building efficiencies into the system.”
Agba, who spoke extensively on the national plan, which he said would be a game changer in the nation’s development effort, noted that the plan was put together by people from all the sectors of the national economy and political divides, with youths making up more than 50 percent of the technical working groups (TWGs).
He stated: “We will want Nigerians not to see this as APC plan or just Buhari plan but a national plan. That is why the three main political parties at th National Assembly, especially at the senate, were invited to participate in the process and make their contribution.
“But over and beyond that, there is the issue of legislating the plan to ensure continuity so that even if there is change of government, you can’t jettison the plan.”
He said the policy would outlive the current regime of President Buhari and move the nation towards economic viability and sustainability.
Agba explained: “I presently believe that this is a major game changer. The reason I’m saying this is because the plan took a look at the past plans where they succeeded and where they also failed; then, based on those gaps, we had seen we have taken action to correct things. You will see that we have deliberately called this National Development Plan.”
He said that the organised private sector (OPS) was the driver of the policy.
The minister said some of the issues that hampered past plans were those of ownership, parties’ participation and inclusiveness.
According to him: “That’s why we looked at institutional arrangements, and government will be the enabler. We have put in place the private sector as driver of the economy. If we deconstruct National Domestic Product, 90 percent of it is by the organised private sector. The totality of government in the economy is just 10 percent.”
“It would be absolutely wrong for an institution that is contributing 10 percent to be the one setting the plan,” the minister said.
He stressed that the plan which had 26 technical committees (groups) that worked on the final draft of the policy, adopted “bottom up approach” to arrive at a clean draft, adding the technical working groups fell within seven prospects.
“People often talk about the sixth prospect, but the seventh prospect for me is the most important part of it in the cluster. It talks about communication of the plan, the plan implementation itself and financing of the plan.
“When you look at the plan structure, for the very first time, we have three volumes and the first speaks to the plan itself, the policy issue and the second volume has prioritised list of programmes and projects. They are not only listed but also costed. So, we have a fair idea of what the financing should be.
“Then the third volume is the legislative imperative. That is to say there are laws militating against the private sector for being the driver of the economy. So, what are those laws we have identified? Are there policies that are not enhancing the growth of private sector? These were also captured in that volume. And that is the volume used by government to make corrections in other to make sure that the plan works well.
“One major difference again with previous plan is the issue of drawing up budget plan.”
According to Agba, the issue of continuity was also factored in, noting that institutional arrangement was put in place to make it compulsory for succeeding governments to adhere to the plan.
The minister said that Nigeria was on the path of industrialization with the country moving away from mono economy as evidenced by the non-oil sector taking the lead in the recently released Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
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