Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The federal government has promised to strengthen its collaboration with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure the smooth operation of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) in planning, executing, and evaluating programs and projects aimed at enhancing socioeconomic well-being.
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mr Clem Agba, gave this assurance at a workshop held recently at the Custodian Hotel, Abuja.
According to a statement issued by the Senior Information Officer in the ministry, Mrs Olatunji Modupe Susan, the Minister said the government was interested in ensuring the success of ESP projects and programmes.
Mr Agba, represented by the Director of Economic Growth of the Ministry, Mrs Elizabeth Egharevba, stated that, “ESP was conceptualized by the present administration to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of global recession resulting from economic meltdown worldwide.”
“The pandemic led to massive loss of jobs, disruption in supply chains, low global oil prices due to low demand and low revenue generation for the country,” the Minister said at the workshop on the implementation of programs and projects under ESP.
Mr Agba pointed out that “the federal government invested N500 billion in the implementation of the ESP projects and programs from July 2020 and were completed towards the end of 2021.”
He noted that about 1.3 million jobs were saved through the Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSME) payroll support, 774,000 people were engaged in the public works program under the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), and 26,021 jobs were generated from construction/rehabilitation of Federal roads under the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA).
The Minister further stated that about 400 units of housing were constructed in Borno, Katsina, Edo, Zamfara, and Kano State to address the housing needs of displaced Nigerians, adding that 495 kilometres of rural roads were constructed to boost agricultural production by enabling timely access to markets by farmers and to prevent post-harvest losses, 129,000 crop farmers and 38,333 animal farmers were supported from the farm input support loan facility.
He emphasized that the country also improved its Biovaccine production and testing capacity through the acquisition of reagents and establishing the state of the art laboratories in the following institutions: The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) in Lagos; The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD).
In his remarks, Permanent Secretary Engr Nebeolisa Anako, represented by the Director of National Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Zakari Lawal, said that “the objective of the meeting is to provide a platform for government to evaluate the performance of the project implementation and the impact on individuals and communities after their completion in 2021, urging participants to provide the evaluators with all the relevant information/data that will support in determining the impact of the projects on the beneficiaries.”
He further stated that the outcome of the exercise would help in addressing sustainability issues and guide the conceptualization and implementation of similar future projects and programs of government.
