A Central Working Committee commissioned to review progress on Vision 2020 first National Implementation Plan (1st NIP) has found government failing in most of the key targets of this very first plan which is supposed to be implemented between 2010 and 2013.
The committee also found apathy by the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), as well as states, most of which failed to provide relevant information needed for the assessment.
The committee particularly found a big gap between the plan aspirations and targets as against achievements made so far. For instance, the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded for the period was lower than the annual set target of 11 percent as virtually all the sectors of the economy underperformed during the period.
Unemployment is also growing despite the strong economic growth while the state of infrastructure has still not reached the level to drive and sustain robust growth needed to leap-frog towards the nation’s goal.
Recurrent expenditures, according to the committee, crowded out capital programme very substantially- the ratio of capital expenditure was set at 48 percent of total budget but only 26 percent was achieved at the federal level.
It was also found that the relationship between the budget and the plan was very vague.
Meanwhile, the country still ranks low with regards to the various indices for measuring good governance, the review committee discovered.
‘Accelerating Development Competitiveness and Wealth Creation for All’ marked the beginning of Nigeria’s intent to implement Vision 2020 Economic Transformation Blueprint. Under this plan, the overall macroeconomic target for the medium term is for Nigeria to achieve a target GDP of N50 trillion ($333 billion) by 2013 and growth per capita from $1,075 in 2009 to $2,008.75 by 2013.
This is premised on four consecutive years of double digit average GDP growth of 11 percent per annum from 7 percent in 2009. The expectation is that government will commit significant resources to the maintenance of its infrastructural assets and even build more. The total investment profile for the period as contained in the blue-print was estimated at N32 trillion, with the three tiers of government investing about N19 trillion and the remaining N13 trillion from the private sector. The Federal Government was expected to invest N10 trillion out of this amount while the states and
Vision 2020 is government’s aspiration to push Nigeria to becoming one of the twenty largest economies by the year 2020 and the implementation has been split into three tranches – the first NIP lasting between 2010 and 2013; second, 2014 and 2017, and third, 2018 and 2020.
The first NIP with the theme local governments had been projected to commit up to N9 trillion.
But the review report seen by BusinessDay indicated that while the plan provided an average annual investment target of N2.5 trillion for the Federal Government, less than one trillion naira was released per year for capital expenditure.
Also, there were several projects in the budgets within the period that could not be found in the plan as budget allocations bore little relationship with plan provisions despite the good performance of government revenues.
“The envelop system that was adopted gave the MDAs freedom to determine their priority projects and programmes with little or no regard to sector priorities set out in the plan,” a presidency source told BusinessDay.
The report has been submitted to Shamsudeen Usman, minister of national planning commission, who has assured on presenting same to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
ONYINYE NWACHUKWU, Abuja
