Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the federal government will soon launch a national economic recovery growth plan in line with its focus at the empowerment of more Nigerians using the administration’s Social Investment Programmes.
Professor Osinbajo made the statement in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday where he is attending this year’s edition of the World Economic Forum packed with international Business Interaction Group of investors focused exclusively on global economies. He also spoke at a panel of Building Africa, joined by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Speaking at the Business Interaction Group attended by several international and local investors and business interests, the vice president assured that the newly developed Economic Recovery Growth Plan of the Buhari administration has been specifically designed to take the country out of recession and in the long term continue to grow the economy. He said the planning of the 2017 was based on the ERGP, which he said would be formally launched next month.
Asked what kind of radical ideas he thinks can advance the African continent, Professor Osinbajo pointed to the federal government’s Social Investment Programme where about N500 billion is being budgeted for Social Investment Programmes as a good example.
“It is about investment in people, in their skills, in youths, that we have a N500bn allocation in our budget last year and proposed for this year also,” he explained.
“It is an investment in education and educating large numbers of people in a short time, it’s a radical thing to make that kind of serious investment in education,” he said, referring to the N-Power scheme’s training component for young graduates, and non-graduates in artisanal and industrial middle-level skills. He also referred to the planned N100,000 supporting grants to students of higher institutions in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, STEM.
Osinbajo said the President Buhari-led government is committed to investing more in infrastructure by ensuring that 30 per cent of the budget goes into capital expenditure. He mentioned that the government is working on ways to tap into Nigeria’s huge Pension Fund to finance infrastructure in the country. To do this, he said “we have to first derisk” such financing models for infrastructure.
Speaking at the world forum, the vice President said an active engagement with, and encouraging the private sector, he said, is also of a great deal, referring to the example of the 650,000bpd refinery project of the Dangote Group.
Assuring that the Buhari administration is very confident about the recovery of the Nigerian economy, Prof. Osinbajo said “it is not difficult to get out of where we are if we understand why we are where we are.” He reminded his audience that the Nigerian economy remains indisputably the biggest in terms of size of the economy.