ERGP: Accountability for delivery lies with MDAs – Udoma
ERGP: Accountability for delivery lies with MDAs – Udoma
NAN-HE-18
Plan
By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja, May 22, 2017 (NAN) Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, Minister of Budget and National Planning, says accountability for the delivery of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) lies with the lead Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Udoma said this at a “Dialogue Session with Permanent Secretaries and Directors-General of parastatals on the ERGP Implementation Roadmap’’ on Monday in Abuja.
He said that the delivery of each strategy in the implementation of the plan depended on the role the MDAs.
“Where the issue is cross cutting, coordination among the relevant MDAs will become imperative,’’ the minister said.
Udoma said as the coordinating ministry, it had decided to call permanent secretaries and directors-general to brief them about the implementation strategies of the ERGP.
He said that the purpose of the meeting was to brief them and secure their buy-in as well as their input in the implementation process.
“We are developing a roadmap for a step by step delivery of each of the strategies. Each strategy will be further broken down into component activities, sub-activities and actions.
“Each action will then be supported by clearly assigned responsibilities, which will be sequenced against clear milestones and timelines for ease of monitoring.’’
The minister said the ERGP was President Muhammadu Buhari led-administration’s blueprint, aimed at building a new Nigeria“ where we grow what we eat, consume what we make and produce what we use’’.
He said that the ERGP should be effectively and faithfully implemented to achieve the fundamental change.
Udoma said the plan should be implemented effectively, while conscious of implementation failure that characterised past strategies and plans.
He added that section 7 in the ERGP was wholly devoted to implementation.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mrs Fatima Mede, recalled that the ERGP was inaugurated on April 5 and that the plan was to take the country out of recession.
Mede said that the process of developing the plan was participatory, adding that its implementation had commenced with the 2017 budget.
“This meeting is to fast-track the implementation process, harvest inputs of the MDAs and come up with the best approach in the implementation,’’ she said.
Also, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, said a lot of work had gone into the development of the plan.
Oyo-Ita said the civil servants would be the ones to implement the plan.
“Nigerians are known for intelligent programmes and policies but the implementation is usually the problem; so the implementation of the ERGP rests on your shoulders.
“This is not the time to make excuses; the purpose of meeting is to support the coordinating ministry on how best to implement the roadmap of the ERGP,’’ she said.
The Federal Government had, on May 2, commenced the process of developing a detailed implementation roadmap of the ERGP.
It commenced the process by engaging relevant stakeholders on the ERGP Implementation Roadmap.
The ERGP projected that Nigeria would 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. (NAN)
CIA/COF/IA
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(Edited by Oluyinka Fadare/Idris Abdulrahman)