President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the preparation of new development plans for the country as Vision 20:2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) end in December.
The Federal Government will engage state governments “to ensure that planned discipline is entrenched in the system, if the country is to make the desired changes in the economy”.
Following from this directive, the 2021 appropriation (budget) will be derived from the Medium-term National Development Plans (MTNDP) 2021-2025.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, yesterday said the Medium-term National Development Plans (MTNDP) 2021-2025, will be launched in December by Buhari.
Agba also revealed that “the macroeconomic indices used for the development of the Economic Sustainability Plan of N2.3 trillion stimulus package to hedge the economy from sliding into deep and prolonged recession due to the impact of COVID-19 had been integrated into the MTNDP”.
According to the Minister of State, the preparation of the MTNDP 2021-2025 will be fast tracked to meet the 2021 appropriation deadline.
Speaking at a press briefing on the update for the development plans which are currently being drafted by relevant stakeholders, the minister said “the second MTNDP (2026 – 2030) report will be ready in February 2021 while final development blueprint for the Nigeria Agenda 2050 will be ready in July next year”.
The desire to synchronise these processes he noted is to ensure that “annual budgets are derived from national development plans, to foster plan discipline in successive years”.
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning added that the macroeconomic framework and growth diagnostic Technical Working Group (TWG) has “produced a macroeconomic framework report, which has been shared with the central working group and presented to the remaining 25 TWGs to guide the ongoing work on their thematic areas”.
Already, the finalisation of the long term models have reached advanced stage and the models “will be used for projections for macroeconomic and development blocks of the Agenda 2050”.
The minister said the Federal Government is committed to producing truly national development plans and not just Federal Government plans.
He pointed out that six state governors, one from each of the six geo-political zones, representatives of major political parties were involved at the steering committee level for the development of the plans.
The minister stated that “efforts are ongoing to also engage the grassroots through the states and the local government in the planning process which shall take place via town hall meetings where memoranda from town development associations and traditional rulers shall be received to deepen engagement, participation and ownership”.
Government, he said, is looking to “develop an inclusive and participatory National Plan that is sufficiently comprehensive with the capacity to accelerate the attainment of various regional and global agendas, including the AU Agenda 2063, ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Integration Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.”
Credit: The Nation
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