By Tayo Joseph Lagos, Nigeria
It is my pleasure to be here today to give some highlights on the achievements of the Ministry of Budget & National Planning. OUR MANDATE This Ministry is the creation of President Muhammadu Buhari. As a Ministry, we are responsible for preparing the annual budgets. In addition, we provide policy advice to the FG on all aspects of national development, development of national plans, monitoring & evaluation of Government policies and programmes, surveillance on the economy, coordination of States’-Federal Government economic relations and coordination of official development support to the country.
THE ECONOMY As you would recall, Mr. President promised three things when he assumed power, which were: (i) Tackling corruption, (ii) Restoring security, and (iii) Fixing the broken economy. Mr. President has remained irrevocably committed to keeping these promises. With regard to the economy we inherited a broken economy where all indices were trending southwards as a result of the collapse of oil prices on which we have been completely dependent. Oil prices had dropped from over US$110 in 2014 to below US$30 in January 2016. This meant we inherited an economy with declining revenues and GDP growth, rising inflation, weakening balance of payments, declining foreign reserves, rising public debt, weak capital market and rising unemployment. ACTIONS
1. 2016 Budget of Change We took immediate action by putting together an expansionary N6.06 trillion 2016 Budget, tagged “Budget of Change” to reflate the economy and reverse this negative trend. The Budget was put together using the Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) – a system which links expenditures to Government’s strategic initiatives. 30 percent of this Budget was dedicated to capital expenditure, from a paltry 16 percent allocated in the 2015 budget. The disruption of oil production in the Niger Delta created very serious additional revenue challenges. Notwithstanding these challenges, we have been able to meet our recurrent expenditure commitments, particularly the payments of salaries for Federal Civil Servants, as well as all our debt service commitments. We have also released aboutN1.2 trillion of the 2016 budget to MDAs to finance their capital projects and programmes, which is unparalleled in the history of Nigeria’s budget performance. These funds were utilized principally on infrastructure. Examples are roads such as Lagos – Ibadan Expressway, Enugu – Onitsha Highway and Sokoto – Tambuwal Road;bridges such as the Oju – Oweto Bridge;airports such as Abuja Airport, railway lines such as Abuja -Idu and Itakpe – Warri, dams such as Kashimbila etc. They were also utilized for agricultural support programmes, educational and health facilities, such as vaccines, and for security and other equipment for the support of our armed forces and the police to keep our country safe. This is why you have seen contractors returning to sites, and many of our people going back to work, as well as improved security in the North East.
2. Social Investment Programmes Throughout his campaign, President Buhari committed himself to helping the poor and the vulnerable. Hence in the 2016 Budget we voted the sum of N500 billion for social investment programmes. These projects are being implemented by the Office of the Vice President, with my Ministry as the accounting MDA for the programme. (i) The Cash Transfer Programme is aimed at providing targeted transfers to poor and vulnerable households, with the final aim of graduating them out of poverty.So far, 35 States have engaged with the programme by signing its MoU and 30,000 households with validated BVN have been paid in the first 9 States. Payments to address backlogs are currently ongoing. (ii) The N-Power programmerecruits and trains young unemployed graduates as teachers, agricultural extension workers and health support workers etc.So far, all 36 States have been engaged and have started receiving payments.174,160 beneficiaries have been deployed so far out of the 200,000 selected N-Power beneficiaries. (iii) The Home-Grown School Feeding Programme aims to increase the enrolment and completion rates at the primary school level. It is called home grown because it relies heavily on the local value chain from the small holder farmer in the community to the accredited caterer in the same community. 26 states have so far engaged with the programme by carrying out their capacity building workshops with the aim of establishing their multi-sectoral teams and determining the model/delivery flow for the programme in their States.Of these 26 States, home grown school feeding has commenced in 7 States while cook-pupil mapping has been carried out in 16 States.So far, 11,937 cooks have been selected, trained and on boarded, and have commenced feeding the pupils.1,051,619 pupils are currently being fed in 8,487 schools across the 7 States. The Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) aims to provide soft loans to artisans, traders, youth, entrepreneurs and market women etc. GEEP has so far disbursed a total of 57,000 loans across 28 States.
3. The 2017 Budget These social investment programmes will be continued under the 2017 Budget titled “the budget of recovery and growth” which has just been passed by the NASS. The 2017 Budget will consolidate on the gains of the 2016 budget, including earmarking about 31% for capital projects.The Budget was prepared on the basis of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and contains many projects that will stimulate growth in the economy such as the social housing fund and the Special Economic Zones programme.
4. Development Planning: The SIP and the ERGP. The President merged the planning and budget functions to ensure that our plans are properly supported by the budget. In terms of planning, we started with developing the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) for the 2016 Budget: This was a compendium of interventions in key priority areas initiated by the FG to guide the implementation of the 2016 budget. As a result of these interventions we have recorded tremendous success in agriculture and solid minerals, which are currently growing at over 4% and 7%, respectively. We have followed up with the development of a more comprehensive medium term Plan – the Nigeria Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017 – 2020: The ERGP, which builds on the SIP, was launched by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari on 5th April 2017. This plan will take us out of recession to a strong, diversified, inclusive, and sustained growth, in which we will be firing on multiple engines of agriculture, manufacturing, solid minerals, services etc., and not just the single engine of crude oil production. The Plan sets out our policy direction for the economy over the medium term, and serves as a guide for investors and businessmen. The three strategic objectives of the Plan, are to; Restore growth from a negative trend in 2016 to 2.19% in 2017 and up to 7% by 2020; Invest in our people by increasing social inclusion, creating jobs and improving the human capital base of the economy; and Build a globally competitive economy. To achieve these objectives, the Plan outlines five key execution priorities which are: Stabilizing the Macroeconomic environment; Achieving Agriculture and food security; Ensuring energy sufficiency (in power and petroleum products); Improving transportation infrastructure; and Driving industrialization focusing on Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.
5. Co-ordination of Development Assistance to the North-East. As you are aware, remarkable success has been achieved in curtailing the insurgency in the North East zone, both in terms of military success in securing the zone and return of normalcy in the affected areas. The Ministry which serves as anchor for the programme has ensured effective harmonization of activities of relevant MDAs and Donor Agencies targeted at improving service delivery. We have also attracted more funding for the country from the Oslo International Conference on Global Humanitarian Situation to support IDPs in the North-East.
6. Monitoring and Surveillance of the Performance of the Economy In the last two years, the Ministry has been monitoring and reporting on the performance of the Nigerian Economy. Particular mention must be made of the work of the National Bureau of Statistics which has consolidated its reputation as a reliable and credible source of economic statistics which are produced on a timely basis. The other two parastatals under my Ministry,namely: Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) and Centre for Management Development (CMD) have continued to provide research, statistical support and capacity development under their respective mandates.
7.Donor Coordination and Management of Official Development (ODA) Assistance in Nigeria. We have successfully coordinated our Donor Assistance Programmes, and a number of Cooperation Agreements have been concluded and signed with major bilateral/multi-lateral development partners. Implementation of the Agreements is being monitored to ensure alignment with national development priorities and aspirations. Altogether, the Federal Government has signed Financing Agreements with several development partners, including the European Union, DFID and USAID among others, amounting to over €194.5 million and $702 million.
8. Partnership with the Private Sector. We have continued to hold frequent and extensive consultations with the private sector, NGO’s and various interest groups to build consensus on our policies and programmes. We did this when developing the NERGP. We have also continued with the tradition of co-hosting the annual Nigerian Economic Summit. The 2016 Economic Summit was focused on ways of promoting ‘Made in Nigeria’ products. In addition, we have introduced the Quarterly Presidential Briefing with the private sector.
9. Co-ordination with State Governments. We have intensified our collaboration with State Governments. The principal vehicle for this has been the National Economic Council (NEC), for which my Ministry serves as the Secretariat. We coordinateda very successful NEC Retreat held between 21- 22 March, 2016 with the theme: “Nigerian States: Multiple Centers of Prosperity”. Many of the resolutions, particularly those on agricultural cooperation and improving the ease of doing business, are being vigorously implemented.The bailout package extended by the FG to States facing financial stress was a product of the NEC meetings.
10. Monitoring and Evaluation In terms of Monitoring and Evaluation, we have revised the National M & E Framework for effective monitoring and tracking the implementation of 2016 FGN capital projects/investments. This has improved transparency and value for money in the implementation of programmes and projects. The process involves physical inspection and impact assessment. We also ensure that fund releases for capital programmes are tied to the priority areas of the Administration as set out in the ERGP.
11. The Future The President’s aim is to create a self-reliant country and people. As the President says “We will change our habits and we will change Nigeria”. A nation in which ‘We grow what we eat and consume what we make”. We are making progress in changing our economy, and in changing our attitudes. A lot of work is being done through Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) to improve the business environment and the response of investors in the last few months hasbeen very positive; Several infrastructural projects are on-going across the country and some are near completion; Government is drastically cutting costs and improving efficiency of service delivery; we are poised to attain food sufficiency in major agricultural products, particularly rice, by next year; the macroeconomic environment is being stabilized and our inflation rate has trended downwards in the last two months. Many of our interventions, particularly in fixing the broken infrastructure, is making impact.The signs are there that we are working our way out of recession this year unto a path of sustained inclusive growth and development. It can only get better as we roll out the full implementation of our ERGP.
12. I thank you for your attention.
