In a statement released yesterday by Senior Special
Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, President
Buhari yesterday ordered the National Planning Commission to go back to the
drawing board and produce the framework for the 2016 national budget that will
reduce recurrent expenditure and prioritize developmental projects.
Shehu said the President gave the order after receiving a
briefing from the Executive Secretary of the commission, Dr. Bassey Akpanyung,
at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the President told Akpanyung and the directors of
the NPC that capital projects must now be given priority because Nigeria cannot
achieve real development without adequate investment in capital and
infrastructural projects.
“In carrying out its role in surveillance of the economy,
review and appraisal of policies, the commission should devise a plan for a
realignment of the budget so that capital projects can be really prioritised,”
the President directed.
The executive secretary of the NPC had informed the
President that Nigeria’s planning system was beset by many challenges. These
challenges, he said, included the non-alignment of national plans with the
annual budget and inadequate capacity in the departments of planning, research
and statistics in the various government ministries.
He said the commission was in the process of developing a
medium term plan.
“Of course, we sought the President’s support for the
articulation and finalisation of that document because his pronouncement on it
will assist us in rapidly doing so.
“Planning, like I said, will make it effective from 2016 to
2019.
“So, we should be working very seriously to pick out the
elements that will form the document.
“The core areas: security, the areas of diversification, the
area of restabilising the polity, the micro economic situations that are going
to be addressed.
“Of course, we can’t forget the issues of unemployment and
agric in the real sectors. These are the areas that will drive and ensure that
the employment situation is improved upon and that will reduce the poverty
level,” he added.
Source: Vanguard
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