“How ERGP will spur Nigeria’s economic growth”

Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of 2017 to 2020 will put the country on the path of economic recovery and stimulate its economic growth, says Ben Akabueze, director general of the Budget of Office of the Federation (BOF).

“The focus of the ERGP is stabilizing the macroeconomic environment by aligning monitory, fiscal and trade policies, achieving agric and food security, improving transport infrastructure, access to energy and achieving industrialization through Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs),” says Akabueze.

He made the assertion Wednesday while keynoting the opening of a 4-day stakeholders’ forum on the Medium-Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) for the 2019 annual budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria in Abuja. The forum was organized by the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) in conjunction with the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, with the support of UK DFID’s Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (DFID-PERL) programme.

Akabueze said the MTSS session was aimed at achieving policy objectives with limited resources towards achieving key deliverables for Nigeria’s medium and long term development plans.

“To achieve these policy objectives we need to get our costing right and define key performance indicators (KPIs) because whatever cannot be measured can’t be managed and what can’t be managed can’t be done. We need to also ensure what is set out to be done in terms of monitoring and evaluation is done; we tend to do a lot of monitoring but little of evaluation,” he said.

He said the key considerations for projects selection in the MTSS-ERGP process included ensuring that budgets of MDAs ‘demonstrably contributed’ towards achieving the ERGP and that such projects would be achieved within the period 2019 – 2021, adding that major factors that would determine the success or otherwise of the MTSS-ERGP process were political support, timely issuance of sector budget ceilings as well as the participation of relevant stakeholders in the MTSS-ERGP process.

The 2019 – 2021 MTSS-ERGP process is aimed at ensuring resources are allocated to priority projects of the Federal Government of Nigeria, as indicated in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) over the 3 year (2019 – 2021) period. It is believed that the MTSS will enable the effective implementation and operationalization of the ERGP.