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GOVERNMENT RAISES PANELS ON VISION 2020

PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar'Adua inaugurated the National Council and the National Steering Committee on Vision 2020, saying that the event marks the beginning of a new dawn in Nigeria's development aspirations. The development came as the Speaker of the House of Representatives warned that the on-going battle against corruption must be won for the vision to be achieved.

The Vision 2020 is aimed at making Nigeria one of the top 20 economies by the year 2020. Lamenting Nigeria's unsuccessful attempts at long-term strategic planning and that long-term visioning process had not yielded substantial benefits over the years, President Yar'Adua tasked states to develop their own Vision 2020 plans, saying that this is imperative in order to promote the productive philosophy of "many governments, one economy, one nation."

Represented by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, the President also asked Nigeria's development partners for "robust and effective" assistance.
He, however, noted that this is the first time a civilian administration would take a long-term perspective. The President stated that Vision 2020 would be executed by the National Steering Committee under the direction of the National Visioning Council.

According to him, these bodies shall be serviced by the National Technical Committee and the stakeholders' visioning groups, which would be constituted in due course.
He said as part of the effort to ensure shared ownership of the vision, all stakeholders, including the private sector and civil society organisations, are to be actively involved in the process. Yar'Adua added that the composition of the National Steering Committee has been deliberately structured to represent the widest spectrum of stakeholders.

President Yar'Adua is the chairman of the council with Vice President Jonathan as deputy. Other members include the Senate President, David Mark, Speaker, House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, governors of Lagos, Imo, Delta, Kwara, Bauchi and Kaduna states (each representing his zone). Others include the ministers of National Planning, Finance, Labour, Youths Development, Justice and Commerce and Industry. The list also includes the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the National Security Adviser. Members from the private sector include representatives from the Economic Summit Group, NACCIMA, Conservatory Society of Nigeria, President, Nigeria Labour Congress and the Chief Economic Adviser to the President.

The National Council was inaugurated with the following terms of reference to:

  • Approve the core national priorities to guide the bottom-up visioning process and provide leadership and direction to galvanize the Vision 2020 process;
  • Ensure the quality of the V2020 plan document, reality of targets and practicality of strategies;
  • Develop a comprehensive plan which will ensure that Nigeria joins the top 20 league of developed countries by the year 2020;
  • Develop a frame-work for mobilising resources from the private sector and other stakeholders for the development of the Vision 2020 plan;
  • Propose a comprehensive planning framework that will enable the annual budgets and medium-term harmonized development plans to be in accordance with the aspiration of NV2020; and
  • Make any other recommendations that the council may consider desirable to bring about the accomplishment of its tasks.
  • Develop methodology and guidelines for all MDAs, private sector and other stakeholders to facilitate a systematic bottom-up development of Vision 2020;
  • Propose appropriate goals, targets and strategies for achieving the socio-economic objectives;
  • Identify and recommend overall national goals and priorities for the approval of the National Council;
  • Guide and assist all sub- national governments of the federation and MDAs to develop their own components of V2020 in accordance with approved guidelines and national priorities;
  • Develop a template for the preparation of a result-oriented communication strategy that will mobilize stakeholders to action and also to monitor annual progress at the national and sub- national levels;
  • Recommend a comprehensive and inclusive monitoring and evaluation (M & E) mechanism for monitoring progress, taking corrective actions and promoting feedbacks; and
  • Make other recommendations that the committee may deem necessary.

Earlier, Minister of National Planning, Sanusi Daggash, while highlighting the compositions of the two groups, noted that the National Steering Committee made up of 70 persons would be the engine room of the Vision 2020. However, the Speaker of House of Representatives expressed fears that unless the current war against corruption in the country succeeded; the dream of Nigeria to become one of the 20th leading economies of the world in year 2020 might turn out to be a pipe dream.

The Speaker spoke at the opening of a three-day retreat organised by the House Committee on Due Process just as the governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, declared that pressure from political godfathers in the country largely contributes to corruption in Nigeria. He said the intention of the House in arranging the retreat was to ensure that Nigerians did the right thing by making due process a way of life so that the country could make meaningful progress. "Until the tide of corrupt practices is seriously reduced and the anti-corruption won, the 2020 vision will only remain a vision. If we have gotten things right in Nigeria, there wouldn't have been any need for this retreat in the first place. To succeed, this battle must be fought as a war by everyone against everyone. This means everybody is involved," he said.

Bankole said the on-going probe of the power sector had given the picture of the situation in the country in the area of waste of public funds and expressed the readiness of the House of Representatives to collaborate with donor agencies such as the World Bank to track all donations and how such funds would be utilised. The Speaker added that the chamber was considering raising a committee on foreign donations so as to properly capture the use of such funds. His words: "Over $2.5 billion comes into Nigeria through donor agencies and it is time we looked into who, how and when such funds come in. We will start tracking the funds and not when they have already been spent should we start oversighting."

Dimeji noted that some agencies of government still collected revenue without remitting to the treasury and said the standing committees of the House would strengthen oversight functions to avoid such situation. He cited the instance of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), saying that the agency collected about N100 million and nothing was being remitted to the treasury. "How can they spend all that money without following Due Process?"
"Due process is not for projects alone but the management of the funds." We intend looking into what is happening to revenue generation and where it is going, you are going to make sure that the Act is followed. You will also look into how we raise funds, revenue. The most important thing is financing and not appropriation," he said.
On his part, the governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, said that political godfathers in the country should be held responsible for the corruption on the part of elected political office holders. The governor said most of them sponsored candidates during election with a view to getting returns on investment and such thing put the political office holders under pressure. "We must all agree that the most difficult aspect of the due process is the politicians and the contractors. Seventy per cent of the politicians go there because they want to better their lives.

Also yesterday, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, gave a breakdown of the nation's foreign reserve of $58.76 billion, saying that only $15.6 billion of the total amount would actually be shared between the three tiers of government.

Briefing journalists after the meeting of the National Economic Council, he said that the remaining $43.16 billion belongs singularly to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Government. The Council, which met for over five hours, also deliberated on the global food scarcity, with an agreement that more collaborative efforts were needed by the three layers of government to ensure that the production, processing, and packaging of food items were harmonised. Usman, who had earlier briefed the Council presided over by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, said that as of April 15 "the total foreign reserve of the country was $58.76 billion. And if you break this amount, CBN itself owns about $40.09 billion while the Federal Government owns a total of $3.07 billion" leaving only $15.6 billion, he said. "And so, when people talk about high level of reserve, they should understand that of this total amount, about $40.09 billion has already been spent in the sense that it represents the dollars which the Federal Government, states and local governments gave to the CBN to translate into naira for them. So, they got the naira and spent the money. And the CBN is keeping the dollars. This amount is not available for spending."

On the issue of soaring food prices, the governor of Ebonyi State, Martins Elechi, who briefed journalists alongside Usman stated that "we took note of the soaring price of essential food materials. This is worrisome to the nation. And information from various parts of the world also indicates that there is world-wide acute shortage of food resulting in the banning of export by certain countries. We think that Nigeria should not wait to be worse hit than those countries that are really experiencing the problems presently."

"So, the Council decided that there should be more collaborative effort between the three layers of government to ensure that the production, procession, and packaging of food items are conducted in proper sequence. Otherwise, the unfortunate experience of food being produced but not processed and packaged in time and resulting in unnecessary wastage could perhaps repeat itself. So that has to be avoided as far as possible."
Elechi added that the Council also asked the nation's research institutions to look into problems of pests and diseases that plague crops "so that farmers will not be discouraged."