Wants recession converted to opportunities
By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday disclosed that the federal government will cut the capital allocation of some ministries in the planned 2017 Budget, with some others getting more than they received in 2016.
This, the President explained, is to ensure necessary focus on government’s key priorities.
Speaking at a Ministerial Retreat on the Economy and the Budget in Abuja, the President said government would continue to strategise on how to turn the current challenges into opportunities, especially for the youth on whose shoulders the future of the country lies.
He said: “This retreat is coming at a critical time in our economic history, when the Nigerian economy is in a recession, with significant downturn in performance in various sectors. It is with regard to the importance of this retreat that I decided to sit through the first part of the session to listen to the views from experienced economists and development experts on how best to implement our plans to rid the country of its oil dependence and to diversify the economy and bring the country out of the current economic recession.
“ This is in line with our administration’s determination to lay a solid foundation for growth and development as outlined in the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) of our Change Agenda.
“Given that this retreat is a lead-up to the 2017 Budget, my expectation is that we will come out of the these sessions with a determination and common position on how to have improved synergy amongst the various Ministries and Departments for the effective formulation and implementation of the 2017 Budget.
“I also trust that the breakout sessions will enable you to discuss extensively amongst yourselves, the details of the four sub-themes and come up with practical solutions on the way forward in order to come out with a set of prioritized projects and programmes that will fit into the 2017 Budget.
“In this regard, let me inform you that because of the need to focus on our key priorities, some ministries may get significantly less capital allocation than they received in 2016, while others may get significantly more.”
Continuing, President Buhari said, “you may notice that some key non-spending agencies, such as the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the National Pension Commission (PENCOM), are participants at this retreat.
“ This deliberate inclusion underscores the commitment of this administration to leverage on private sector resources, through Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and other arrangements, in order to augment the scarce budgetary resources at our disposal and to accelerate investments in building critical infrastructure.
“Indeed, the challenges we face in the current recession require ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, to deploy strategies that involve engaging meaningfully with the private sector, to raise the level of private sector investment in the economy as a whole.
“We are confident that the level of private investment will grow as we are determined to make it easier to do business in Nigeria by the reforms we are introducing under the auspices of the Presidential Committee on Ease of Doing Business,” he said.
“This is why we have embarked on measures and actions that will open up the opportunities we have seen in the Power, Housing, Agriculture, Mining, Trade and Investment, Information Communication Technology (ICT) Sectors, Tourism, Transport and other sectors.
“I wish to reassure its teeming youth that this Government would remain steadfast in its effort to ensure greater progress and prosperity for you. While government is taking the lead in the task of repositioning our economy for change, we cannot achieve this completely by ourselves.
“We will need, and we ask for the support and cooperation of the private sector’s domestic and foreign investors, the States and Local Governments, the National Assembly and the Judiciary as well as all well-meaning Nigerians in this important task. We are confident that working together, we shall succeed,” the President assured.
