*Provide 15m jobs in new economic plan
Oscarline Onwuemenyi
13 April 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Federal Government has disclosed that it will generate about 10 gigawatts of electricity and provide at least 15 million jobs for Nigerians by the year 2020 as captured in the recently launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, who gave the assurance at a news conference on ERGP in Abuja, explained said the implementation of the plan would deliver some key outcomes, including generation of at least 10 gigawatt of electricity by 2020.
He said: “We want to bring down the rate of unemployment by creating over 15 million direct jobs by 2020 in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, services and particularly among the youth. We want the manufacturing sector to grow at average of 8.5 per cent, peaking 10.6 per cent by 2020.
“We want agriculture to also grow by 6.9 per cent over the Plan period; we want self-sufficiency in rice and wheat in 2018 and 2020 at the end of the plan period. We want 60 per cent reduction in imports of refined petroleum products by 2018 and to become a net exporter of refined crude by 2020.
He added that, “We expect an average of 4.6 per cent average real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate over the Plan period with 7 per cent by 2020; we want to achieve single digit inflation rate by 2020.
“We want to increase crude oil output from 2.2 million barrel per day (mbpd) to 2.5 mbpd by 2020. We want to achieve at 10 gigawatts of operational electricity capacity by 2020.”
Udoma said the ERGP evolved from the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), which government had been implementing since 2016.
He said: “Already, following the implementation of the SIP, the economy has shown signs of early recovery in the 4th quarter of 2016 as indicated in the recent report released by the National Bureau of Statistics. We need to build on that momentum.
“This Plan, which succeeds the SIP, sets out Government’s economic programmes and strategic interventions over the next four years (2017-2020). When implemented, it will put Nigeria back on the path of diversified, inclusive, sustained growth. This is therefore, our blueprint for economic recovery and growth.”
Udoma further said the plan would tackle the fundamental problems that held back the progress of the country in the past.
He said the future prosperity rests upon collective support towards effective implementation of the Plan over the next four years.
The ERGP projects that Nigeria will make significant progress to achieve structural economic change with a more diversified and inclusive economy in five key areas by 2020.
The key areas are stable macro-economic environment, agricultural transformation, food security, sufficiency in energy and improved transportation infrastructure.
