Continue with National Development Plan, FG pleads with Tinubu administration
The federal government has pleaded with the incoming administration to continue with its National Development Plan (NDP).
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, made this appeal at his end of tenure news conference in Abuja on Thursday.
Agba said that while developing or working on the National Development Plan (NDP) strategy, the governance structure was carefully looked at to ensure inclusiveness and the full participation of everybody.
“We recognized the diversity in Nigeria and when you are looking at diversity, we also had to ensure that the sub-national level, both the state and local government, also participated in the development of the plan.
Those who participated in developing the NDP Agba said include members of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), six state governors, traditional and religious leaders, he physically challenged Women and members of the private sector comprising farmers and Small and Medium Enterprise Organizations.
Agba added that the “Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, the Nigeria Economic Society, the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, they all participated in the development of the plan. So that’s why we are proud to say that this is truly a national development plan, no one was left behind because everybody developed it, we all did it together.”
Speaking on the government programme that meant a lot to the administration, Clem Agba said “issues around poverty and the need to not only reduce poverty but promote growth, the issues around integrated rural development as entrenched in the National Development Plan 2021-2025 were very important to the government.
The minister also stated that the rural-urban migration which gave rise to slums in urban areas and escalated insecurity posed a serious challenge to the Buhari government.
According to Agba, “this is one programme I think that the incoming government should also pay some particular attention to and this is because if we are able to resolve the issues around integrated rural development, we will be solving a lot of urban related issues.
“Our youths who live in rural areas or the urban areas are in search of opportunities, so if those opportunities are provided for in the rural areas, then we are not going to have this huge rural-urban migration and it is because we are having this huge rural-urban migration that we are having a lot of slums being developed around our urban centers,” he added.
Agba said that when we measure those deprivation that’s when we talk about multidimensional poverty, which is what we now want to be measuring, because we place emphasis on monetary poverty and left the more important thing of ensuring that our citizens have access to education, have access to health, have potable water and sanitation, which are supposed to be basic.
So, if we’re unable to meet the basics of life, why are we talking about only monetary poverty.
Other milestones achieved by the administration under his supervision Agba said include the creation of the citizen-based web application, EYEMARK, which can be used to track the execution of capital projects in the country.
Another of the administration’s achievements is “the Open Government Partnership, which has gradually transformed the governance ecosystem in Nigeria There is also the improvement of budgetary processes, procurement processes, boosting of anti-corruption through the introduction of transparency in company ownership,” he said.
