ABUJA, JUNE 29, 2016 – Sen. Udoma Udo-Udoma, Minister of Budget and National Planning says the Federal Government will adopt simple planning process to achieve inclusive growth and development in the country.Udo-Udoma said this when he was fielding questions from some participants at the 2016 Annual Public Lecture of the Nigerian Economic Society (NES) in Abuja.
He said the country would learn from Ethiopia experience who had recorded 10 per cent growth rate consistently for over 10 years in agriculture sector.
The minister said that he had visited the country to learn the secret of their success and was ready to replicate it in Nigeria.
“I went to find out from Ethiopia how to achieve this and how they did their planning and the processes.
“I found out that they consulted farmers; they went down to the grassroots and made their planning very simple,’’ he said.
According to the minister, our plans are too complex and it is because we have top economists, who put the plans in a language that many do not understand.
“We need to do simply plan, we need to make use of a language that everybody can understand and we need to consult with economists.
“We encourage them (economists) to simplify it to be able to achieve inclusive development.
“We want a simply plan, a plan that will consult extensively, a plan that everybody will understand, a plan that will be internalised by everybody,’’ he said.
According to him, making the plan simple is the only way the country can achieve inclusive growth and development.
Meanwhile, Udo-Udoma explained the modalities for the implementation of social intervention projects, adding that N500 billion had been allocated for the projects in 2016 budget.
He said that the Federal Government would implement the projects in accordance with the campaign promises to support the poor and the vulnerable citizens.
“The process of selecting the beneficiaries might be difficulty but we will not run from challenges, we may not get it right the first time but we will keep on trying.
“The key thing is to cut out the middle man, in terms of getting the benefit down to the beneficiaries; trying to identify beneficiaries from rural communities.
“So, we will pay money directly to the beneficiaries’ accounts using technologies to achieve this in order to cut out the middle man.
“We have to check and double check to improve on it as the implementation progresses,’’ the minister said.
The topic of the lecture was entitled: “Strengthen Budget – Plan Link for Inclusive Development in Nigeria.’’
The lecture was delivered by Prof. Mike Obadan of University of Benin Foundation for Education and Development.
