FG’s N2.3trn Stimulus Package Will Avert Economic Recession—Minister

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, has stated that the provision of stimulus package by the Federal Government will go a long way in preventing the country from plunging into deep economic recession.

Agba stated this at a virtual roundtable discussion, among state and non-state actors, international organizations and donor agencies, facilitated by the Nigeria’s secretariat of Open Government Partnership.

The minister, who is a co-chair of OGP, led the discussion, which focused on ensuring an effective and inclusive stimulus as well as safety nets campaign for Nigeria as part of the response to the COVID-19 recovery.

The Minister said that the round-table discussion was aimed at improving transparency and accountability as the country responded to COVID-19, especially with the Economy Sustainability Plan, adding that it would rebuild citizens’ trust in government.

The N2.3trn Economic Sustainability Plan had been endorsed by the National Economic Council and the Federal Executive Council.

The Economic Sustainability Plan would last for one year focusing on achieving mass employment and mass domestic production that are not dependent on importa-
tion or foreign exchange expenditure.

The Federal Government had said it opted for the N2.3tn stimulus package because of the limited fiscal space and the scale of the country’s economic challenge.

A breakdown of the N2.3trn package showed that N500bn would come from Special Accounts; while N1.1tn would be injected into the economy through structured lending from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

In addition, the one year economic blueprint stated that about N334bn would be sourced from external bilateral/multilateral organisations while N302.9bn would come from other funding sources not stipulated in the document

The Minister stated that the meeting was to discuss the existing transparency mechanisms of government’s COVID-19 response and recovery plan and to further brainstorm on ways of improving existing mechanisms and systems.

Agha said, “The issues that we have is the disconnect between government and the governed; and, because of this disconnect, there is some kind of lack of trust, no matter how good the intentions government programmes are.

“Mr President has signed up to the Open Government Partnership just to ensure transparency and accountability and that we are able to engage our citizens as well as build trust in all that we do.”

The minister said that it was imperative to use the OGP to drive public participation and ownership of some of the programmes put in place by the government in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Agba expressed concern over some of the crises facing the country, which he outlined as health, humanitarian, security as well as economic crises.

He said that measures of preventing a deep economic recession could not, in the context of the current realities,  be overemphasized.

He added, “We have had about 12 consecutive quarters of growth since the recession we had in 2016, which led to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan being put in place.”

He stated that there were indications that Nigeria might be heading into a deep economic recession because growth was about 1.4 per cent as against 2.5 per cent growth that the country had in the last quarter of 2019,

To avert the deep recession, he said the the government had introduced programmes and economic activities that would engender growth.

Earlier, the co-chair and CEO of OGP, Mr Sanjay Pradhan said the meeting was important, stressing that it helped to give information about the provision of massive stimulus package for the vulnerable groups and the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

He said through the stimulus package, the government wod be able to create employment opportunities for the people.

Sanjay said that jointly,  stakeholders would achieve clarity in terms of road maps, roles and responsibility by collectively monitoring the money and ensuring it reaches the beneficiaries.

He said there was a huge benefit to the Nigerian people who were made vulnerable by the COVID-19 pandemic.