The Cabinet Retreat on the Budget, held at the Banquet Hall State House, Abuja, on Thursday, September 15, 2016 has come up with ways out of the country’s current economic recession. The suggestions are contained in a communique of the retreat issued on Monday by the organiser, the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

The communique listed key resolutions reached at the retreat as follows:

(i) The programme of action for dealing with the recession and the current effort of government in developing an Economic Emergency Recovery Bill to address the situation as well as the plan to bridge the funding gap was endorsed by participants;

(ii) The need to prioritise capital spending in the 2017 budget in the area of infrastructure development, Agriculture and social intervention;

(iii) The Retreat participants agreed on 2-3 quick-win areas to be implemented before the end of 2016 and 6 priority/programme project areas for the 2017 Budget. These included:

Quick wins:

(i) Immediate implementation of the social intervention

programmes (School Feeding, N-Power, STEM, CCT, etc);

(ii) Effective communication of government projects,

programmes and policies to the citizens will go a long way in mobilising support for government to succeed;

(iii) Local debt repayment, including debt owed states and contractors to stimulate spending.

(b) Priority Project/Programme areas:

(i) Infrastructure, including Power, Rail and Public Works

Agriculture & Agro Processing;

Mining & Solid Minerals;

Social Intervention Schemes/ Public works;

Human Capital Development; and Population census to facilitate accurate data for planning

The Ministry of Budget and National Planning is to further review and fine-tune the proposal priority areas for incorporation into the 2017 Budget

News Express reports that the theme of the Retreat was “Building Inter-Ministerial Synergy for Effective Planning and Budgeting in Nigeria”.

The retreat was structured into two parts, with the first devoted to technical level presentations on the economy by Minister of Budget and National Planning Udoma Udo Udoma and four Economists/Development experts from the private sector. The second part featured syndicate group discussion and presentation of the outcome by retreat participants.

The opening ceremony of the event was chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari, whose key message was the need for cabinet members to think “out of the box” and propose strategies towards moving the country out of recession.

The retreat was attended by 234 participants consisting of ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Government Parastatals and other senior government officials.

•Photo shows Udo Udoma.

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