FG Pays Foreign Experts N458m to Study Economic Recovery & Growth Plan for 3 Months

By Dipo Olowookere

The sum of N458 million has been approved to hire foreign consultants from Malaysia to conduct a foreign study of the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) for three months.

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr Udoma Udo Udoma, made this disclosure on Wednesday, while briefing newsmen after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by the Vice President, Mr Yemi Osinbajo, at the State House.

Mr Udoma said the foreign consultants would use their experience to critically study the plan so as to give it credibility.

According to him, the study would be done in three stages; pre-laboratory, laboratory and post laboratory and would involve about 100 persons from both the public and private sectors.

The Minister told journalists that the consultants would conduct the forensic tests on power, transportation, gas, manufacturing and processing.

“Today (Wednesday), the Federal Executive Council approved a memorandum that was brought by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning to retain some consultants to help us to conduct some pilot laboratories.

“This is part of our implementation strategy for the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and so, we intend to conduct three labs – one in agriculture and transportation, one in power and gas and one in manufacturing and processing,” the Minister said.

Mr Udoma explained that, “The key objectives of the labs are as follows: one is to identify all relevant key stakeholders from the public and private sectors that are crucial in the delivery and implementation of the ERGP initiative so as to create ownership early in the development process.

“We will review and re-evaluate the ERGP and sectoral plans against set targets and progress and will include identifying gaps in the current economic system and the key success factors.

“It will further deliver detailed a three-phase implementation programme line by line. We will identify entry point projects. We will identify key performance indicators, breaking down silos and encouraging key players.

“Now, the focus of the labs is to mobilise private sector investment to finance specific capital projects as you know public resources are limited. So, these labs will bring in private sector players. We will look at the various areas including: infrastructure, manufacturing and bring them in and mobilise private sector financing and resources for the labs.

“So, what council has approved today (yesterday) is that we bring in some consultants who did a similar thing in Malaysia to try to help us build our own capacity. They will just help us at the beginning and after that, we will take over and do it ourselves.”