By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Six Senate committees have been mandated to interview Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed to assess the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) that spanned 2017 to 2020.
The Committees – which cut across National Planning, Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Marine Transport, Land Transport, Works and Power – have four weeks to report back to plenary.
The Senate made the resolution after considering a motion “on the need to critically assess the performance of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020” sponsored by Senator Abdu Suleiman Kwari (APC, Kaduna North).
Kwari noted that the ERGP, a document for Appropriation Acts for four years, has elapsed.
He recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari launched the Plan in April 2017 to ensure sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
“The Plan was targeted at achieving a structural economic transformation with emphasis on improving the efficiency of both the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy,” Kwari said.
“The key objectives of the Plan were to increase our national productivity, achieve a sustainable diversification of production, significantly grow our economy by 7 per cent by the year 2020, maximise the welfare of our citizens and attain food and energy security.
“The four-year plan, which has now elapsed, cannot be said to have met our desired socio-economic aspiration.
“There is need for stock taking to critically assess the performance of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan in order to ascertain whether the Plan has met the desired goals now that it has technically come to an end.”
Areas for assessment
In taking stock, Kwari stressed, it is imperative to determine real growth in agriculture, solid minerals, energy, and SMEs as well as impact on industry.
Others are to assess include
· Investment in human capital
· Jobs and wealth created
· Investment in health and education
· Investment in and progress on infrastructure
· Progress made by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC)
· Digital-led economy targets
· Anti-corruption fight and recovery of stolen assets
· Progress of the fight against insecurity
· Fiscal and other macroeconomic policies
· Implementation of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention in all sectors
Kwari lamented the negative impact of the pandemic on the world economy, as well as Nigeria’s, which affected the implementation of the Plan in 2020.
He stressed that it is the constitutional duty of the National Assembly (NASS) to assess budget performance against the items and objectives of the ERGP.
Learning lessons
Senator Adetumbi (APC, Ekiti North), stressed that the initiative is to “take stock of what we have done under ERGP in order to ascertain future plans and learn lessons from existing ones.”
Senator Abdullahi Ibrahim Gobir (APC, Sokoto East) said: “We have to look at the Economic Team, how qualified they are to monitor some of these projects. If they are not qualified, we remove them and then bring qualified people.
“Because the federal government cannot have a plan for four years and yet we cannot have information about whether that plan has failed or succeeded. I think we have to find out some of these issues.”
Deputy Senate Whip Aliyu Abdullahi (APC, Niger North) added that “national planning is something that should always be in the front burner of our discuss.
“Attempt in the past to have a very concise national planning framework has always met with some level of either policy flip-flop or instability.
“The ERGP, which was meant to be operated for four years was actually coming at the heels of the recession we suffered in 2016 and, I think, the ERGP was packaged bearing in mind the issues that led to that recession.”
Abdullahi said the Plan has been operated since 2017 and “let’s not forget that government came up with what they called Economic Sustainability Plan and, I think, the National Assembly played a critical role in how [it] was packaged, bearing in mind that the ERGP was not going to perform the functions it was meant to do.”
