March 29, 2024

BY Apkandem James
INTRODUCTION
The key mandates of the Ministry include rendering policy advice to the
Federal Government on all aspects of national development, development
of national plans (long, medium and short term) and annual budgets,
monitoring and evaluation of Government policies and programmes,
surveillance on the economy, coordination of state-FG economic relations
and management of development cooperation. The major activities and
achievements of the Ministry in year 2017 are presented below:
A. PLANNING
In 2017 a medium-term plan, the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan
2017 – 2020 (ERGP) was developed and launched. The ERGP builds on
the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP); a short term plan which the
Ministry developed in 2016 to drive the 2016 Budget. It was aimed at
addressing the country’s economic challenges and laying the foundation
for economic diversification, inclusive , sustainable growth and maximize
welfare for all Nigerians.
Theplanhas threekeyobjectives:restoringgrowthfromanegativetrend
in 2016 to 7% by 2020; Investing in our people by increasing social
inclusion, creating jobs and improving the human capital base of the
economy; and building a globally competitive economy. There are five key
execution priorities in the plan:
i. stabilizing the macroeconomic environment;
ii. achieving agricultural transformation and food security;
iii. ensuring energy sufficiency (power and petroleum products);
iv. Improving transportation infrastructure:
v. driving Industrialization, focusing on Small and Medium Scale
Enterprises.
The plan places emphasis on effective implementation and delivery.
Thus under the year in review, the Ministry initiated the process of
organizing Sector Focused Labs fashioned after the Malaysian Model, as
part of its effort to drive critical sectors of the economy towards realizing the
strategic objectives of the ERGP. Following the Federal Executive

 

Council’s approval in November 2017, the Ministry has concluded

arrangement to fully organize the labs by early in 2018. Those labs
would bring together relevant stakeholders in the public and private sectors
into weeks of intensive working sessions to brainstorm on practical steps to
overcoming any identified challenges in the implementation of the
country’s economic plan. The central objective is to attract private sector
funding of key projects across the country through a multi-stakeholder
approach and serve as an effective tool for ensuring robust engagement
between the public and private sectors to resolve challenges within a
specified sector. The initial labs will be in agriculture and transportation,
power and gas, and in manufacturing and processing. Thereafter, similar
labs will be conducted in other areas such as entertainment and
tourism, health and education amongst others. The sessions will be
directed by relevant Ministers and senior government officials, with the
participation of captains of industry and potential investors, both Nigerian,
as well as major international companies. Young and aspiring
entrepreneurs will also be part of the exercise. Already the Federal
Government has set up an ERGP implementation team located in the
Ministry of Budget and National Planning which will be facilitators of the
labs. These staff will be supported by some consultants from Malaysia who
will facilitate the first three pilot labs after which their services will no longer
be required.
B. BUDGETING
The preparation of the 2018 budget proposals is particularly worthy of
mention. As was the case in 2016 and 2017, the 2018 budget was
prepared using the Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB) approach. The approach
ensures that every item in the budget is justified and linked with
government reforms and initiatives as reflected in the ERGP. With the
decision to return to the predictable January to December budget cycle,
beginning 2018, the Ministry had to work flat out to compress a 12 month
activity into just three months, to meet the October 2017 timeline for
submission of the proposal, first to the Federal Executive Council and then
to the National Assembly. Since the 2017 budget was not running its full
cycle of 12 calendar months, it entailed, among others, the rolling over of
some of the capital projects under that budget to the 2018 Budget of
Consolidation. In spite of the shortness of time, the 2018 budget
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