Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, has stated that the National Development Plan (2021–2025) was created to ensure Nigeria’s future, including meeting the requirements for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
She claimed that the NDP will remove industry barriers and loosen restrictions that have prevented the economy from reaching its full potential, notably in the area of product mapping. These were mentioned by the minister during a forum to assess the effectiveness of the NDP (2021–2025).
Journalists in Abuja were able to collect speeches from the event on Sunday. Dr. Sarah Alade, the Special Adviser to the President on Finance and the Economy, Prince Clem Agba, the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, and Permanent Secretary Nebeolisa Anako were also present at the ceremony.
Additionally present were Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, Special Advisor to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Felix Okonkwo, Acting Director of the Macroeconomic Analysis Department, and economist Dayo Alao.
Okonkwo claimed that the private sector would invest N300 trillion in the NDP. Let me just say that this strategy is substantially different from other proposals we’ve had in the past, he remarked. The private sector will be its main driver.
“This plan has a financial and investment size envelope of around N350 trillion, of which the private sector will contribute N300 trillion and the government will contribute almost N50 trillion.
“The exact amount is N348 trillion, but I merely rounded it up. Therefore, only 14% of the plan’s investment comes from the public sector, while 68% comes from the private sector. Ahmed explained the rationale behind the government’s decision to push the NDP (2021–2025).
She declared, “I want it to be known that this plan is sufficiently thorough and has the potential to achieve many regional and global goals, including the AU Agenda 2063, the ECOWAS Integration Agenda 2050, and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
The plan is designed to play a significant role in the global product complexity arena and to adopt measures to ease restrictions that have prevented the economy from realizing its full potential, notably in the area of product mapping.
Agba claims that the plan was carefully crafted so that it wouldn’t be mistaken for the agenda of the All Progressives Congress, the Federal Government of Nigeria, or President Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
