Though the federal government has commenced the implementation of the N2.3 trillion stimulus package, the economic distortions and hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic require the relevant ministers and stakeholders to expedite action on the plan adopted to mitigate the effect of the crisis on the economy, according to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Emphasizing the need for a quick implementation of the plan, the vice president said “everything that we are doing has to be done immediately.”
Continuing, he said, “We are already in ‘Day 67’ since the plan. Nothing is going to happen by magic, we have to simply do this stuff. We got to ensure that we have the money and ensure that day by day, we are measuring our achievements and trying to ensure that we do the things that we need to do. And we simply are not favoured by time, every single day the poverty situation and the economic distortions deepen.”
In a presentation which ended with the headline “The Urgency of Now,” the vice president stated this on Monday while presenting an overview of the Economic Sustainability Plan at the First Year Ministerial Performance Review Retreat organized for Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and top government functionaries. Mr Osinbajo made his presentation after delivering the president’s opening speech. The 2-day retreat ended Tuesday.
According to Mr Osinbajo, “…everybody recognizes that the only way out of this particular problem is to ensure that we fund production, enable consumer spending so that people can go and buy things, and we have to put money in people’s hands.”
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For instance, the vice president noted that “the Mass Agriculture programme is one where we envisaged that we will be engaging many farmers. So far, we have enumerated at least 4 million farmers. So, these are farmers who are tied to their lands and we have the geo-statistics that shows where their land is and we have about 4 million of them. And we expect that with each state contributing acreage for farming, we will be able to do significant numbers. The plan is designed in such a way that in each one of the programmes, we are engaging as many Nigerians as possible.
“The expected outcome for agriculture, even if each farmer employs an additional person, this will result in an additional 4 million jobs and even more jobs along the value chain. We also will be looking at developing rural roads to reduce post-harvest losses.
“Then guaranteed off-take of the produce. The way the programme is designed is that we have anchor farmers who are big farmers. They engage several thousands of farmers and they ensure that these farmers have all of their requirements and they guarantee the offtake of their produce. We have done the survey and it is very evident that so long as there is funding, we will be able to do this programme.”
For the Mass Housing Programme, the Vice President said “…the programme is one where we are looking at building 300,000 homes across the country. We are looking at ensuring that the price of those homes do not exceed N2 million. We already have models which have been put up in Borno State by the Family Homes Fund where the figure is at about N2 million. This is the social housing scheme.”
