FEC Approves 5-Year National Development Plan

*Private Sector To Contribute N298.3trn
*Says EPRG Not Inclusive Enough
*Health Ministry Gets Nod To Award N2.351 Bn Contracts

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday approved the 2011-2025 National Development Plan (NDP), which is a successor programme to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

The plan has an investment size of N348.7 trillion to be contributed by the federal, state governments and the private sector.

Briefing correspondents after the council meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the presidential villa, Abuja, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, explained that the plan is structured on economic growth and development, infrastructure, public administration, human capital development, social development and regional development.

She revealed that for the investment size, the public sector will contribute N49.7 trillion while the private sector will contribute N298.3 trillion.

According to her, the funding strategy includes broadening the tax base and expanding the capacity of the private sector through creating investment opportunities and delivering quality engagements and incentives.

Mrs Ahmed explained: “Today, the ministry of finance, budget and national planning presented a memorandum to council, requesting for approval of national development plan for 2021-2025 which is a plan that is succeeding the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) which will expire in December 2021.

“This national development plan we call NDP for short is structured around six concepts and these concepts include economic growth and development, infrastructure, public administration, human capital development, social development and regional development.

“This also says that the part… by a micro-economy framework which projects average GDP growth of five percent over the… and also the plan has been costed to have an investment size of N348.7 trillion over a five year period.

“This investment size is to be contributed by the public sector at N49.7 trillion representing 14.3% and the private sector at N298.3 representing 85.7%.

“Also the public sector expenditure component of N49.7 trillion will be contributed by the federal government as well as the states.

“The federal government expenditure component is N29.6 trillion representing 8.5% of the total expenditure size while the state governments will contribute N20.1 trillion representing 5.8%.

“The funding strategy for the plan has also been identified and this includes broadening the tax base and expanding the capacity of the private sector through creating investment opportunities and delivering quality engagements and incentives.

“Also exploring domestic and concession financing sources and strengthening and setting up financial investments vehicles and public-private partnership as well as the Nigerian investment and…

“The plan requires the establishment of a strong implementation mechanism and framework that promotes performance and accountability which is necessary for the implementation of the plan.

“There will also be a development plan implementation unit that will report to the National steering committee which will be headed by Vice President with the ministers of finance, budget and national planning as vice-chair.

“The establishment of the plan development implementation will be in the planning arm of the ministry to ensure that the ministries, departments and agencies, state governments and private sector organizations are all working in a coordinated fashion.

“The plan also has a specific concentration to deliver within the five year period and immediately we get this plan launched, we’ll be continuing to work on Nigeria Agenda 2050. And this is to make sure we don’t have a crisis going forward.”

Also speaking, the Minister of State for National Planning, Clement Agba, said in coming up with the NDP, the government took into consideration the criticisms that trailed the NDP including the fact that it was not inclusive enough.

He explained: “In going into this plan, we took a look at the previous plan, that is ERGP, with a view to seeing what the criticisms were; what did we do well? And one of the downsides that we learnt from the ERGP or complaints that came from people was that: it wasn’t inclusive enough, it wasn’t participatory enough, and that people saw it as a federal government plan.

“So, deliberately, for this National Development Plan 2021-2025, the issue of no one being left behind was key. We have to make sure it’s national enough. That is to say that it should be prepared by the federal government, state governments, local governments, and more importantly, the organised private sector.

“That is why in terms of governance structure that was approved by Mr President, we have two co-chairs. One is from the private sector, Mr Atedo Peterside, and one from the public sector, my sister, Dr Zainab Ahmed.”

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire also told correspondents that FEC approved contracts worth about N1.264 billion for projects in Federal Medical Centre, Katsina and Uthman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto.

He said the council approved the procurement of an oncology and radiotherapy centre for the medical centre to be able to handle cancer cases.

And for the university, he said the council approved that the linear accelerator and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine be replaced.

Ehanire stated: “The FEC today considered three memos from the Ministry of Health, and all of them were in respect of procurements. First was the memo from the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina for oncology and radiotherapy centre, to be able to handle cancer cases.

“The projected award was to a company for N1,023,500,668:86 for the completion period of 42 weeks and is going to be executed by a Nigerian company.

“The second memo was for reequipping Usman Danfodio University which is one of our centres of excellence for managing cancer also.

“The equipment are old and broken down. The most important one which is linear accelerator which is going to be replaced and the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine which will also be replaced.

“The MRI at the cost of N440,484,984.32 to replace the old dis-functional one and a linear accelerator at N887,690,000 from special intervention fund. For the MIR is from budget appropriation.”