Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) ended at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja with a call on federal government to make public the forensic audit of the missing $20 billion from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), reports DigitalSENSE Business News.
Chairman of the Group, Mr. Foluso Philips made the call in his welcome address at the ongoing 20th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
Mr. Philips insisted that federal government should not only bring into public domain the outcome of the forensic audit of the missing fund but should take a step further in prosecuting those found culpable in the act.
"The central bank recently raised concern about unrecovered oil revenues, while this still remain contention, the fact remains that millions of Nigerians can’t afford to lose even a kobo, all these monies belong to the treasury and must be paid to the treasury.
"While we commend the President for committing to thoroughly examine this allegations, we also appeal on behalf of the Nigerian populace that the outcome of this investigation be made public and more importantly, those who are responsible are held accountable.
"Unfortunately, too many investigations have remained inconclusive. The privatisation of the power sector has become a reality,’’ he stated.
He noted that the annual summit this year came early because of the very busy national and global calendar within which they have to work.
"Within weeks from now, Nigeria would be hosting for the first time, the global gathering for economic forum for Africa, which had been held in different parts of Africa for the past 24 years and will be attended by global players that are looking to Africa as the next great and emerging continent. This is indeed is an honour to Nigeria but setting also the urgency to fix the things that are clearly broken," he said.
The NESG Chairman also avowed that so much had happened to the economy since the end of the 19th summit in September 2013 on agriculture, with so many agro entrepreneurs emerging.
In addition to this, he said that the Federal Executive Counsel had adopted several policies to accommodate some of the recommendations made at the last summit.
Beyond these policies, he added that government is currently thinking some legislation to support the agricultural transformation.
For example, a bill he said had been sent to the federal legislatures to make the Goods Enhancement Scheme Initiative a law; the creation of commodity exchange under the pieces of Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment which is being actively discussed in several international for a by interesting parties, who have interest in the field.
‘‘Since the last summit, a number of private sector investors had made some investments like Dangote Group that committed $515 million in the tomatoes, rice and Sorghum in Kano State, the Flour Mill of Nigeria has committed about $217 million for cassava processing, while Dansa Foods to invest about $100 million on fruit juice processing. The economy at 6 per cent last year had continued to show a robust growth in output.
‘‘As advocates for continuous improvement in the operating environment for business, we noted a slow down of inflation in 2013 coming to 8.5 per cent from 2.2 per cent in the previous year. In the context of bring the level of inflation similar to our peers, we noticed the continued weakness of the naira as a consequence of the fall revenue.
‘‘With our foreign reserves falling below $29 billion, and expected to continue to fall, our economy is extremely challenged and monetary policies choices are getting harder. If the continued leakage in oil revenue are not addressed and drastic step taken to slow down this, then the tightening of the monetary policy conditions will be required to hold the value of the currency,’’ he warned.
On power, he commended federal government for the transparent manner in which the sector was privatised and urged it to sustain the tempo.
The government had so privatised the distribution outlet of the power sector and liberalise the generation sector for private sector to invest and build infrastructure in the value chain, which is commendable. This initiative has been recognised as one of the most transparent and comprehensive privatization in recent times,’’ he pointed out.
According to Phillips, the summit on education was designed to achieve three things namely; draw the attention of stakeholders to problems in education sector, consider the capacity of the government in addressing the sector, and also device institutional mechanism to address the problem.
He further underscored the relevance of the summit in facilitating the formulation of national policies and called on stakeholders to participate in the change of redeeming the education sector for future economic growth.
The theme of the summit is: Transforming Education Through Partnerships for Global Competitiveness.
High point of the summit was a Presidential Policy Dialogue on the education sector, which is expected to determine the gaps in the implementation of the Presidential Task Team, PTT report that can assist in meeting Nigeria's developmental goals.
The dialogue is also expected to discuss and review the National Education philosophy, whether it is still valid and fit for the nation’s purpose.
In his speech, the Supervising Minister of National Planning, Amb Bashir Yuguda, stated that functional and qualitative education remains critical to achieving the transformation agenda of federal government and economic growth.
Also speaking, the Director General of the NESG, the Frank Nweke Jnr. said the theme of the summit was taken to redress the decline in the nation’s education sector, which is considered as a critical element to economic growth of the nation.
"The Nigerian education sector is in dire straits and requires the intervention of both public and private stakeholders if it is to fulfill its function of preparing Nigeria to compete in the global economy" he said.
On his part, the Minister of Education said the interventions of Federal Government through the Universal Basic Education, UBEC and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND is contributing positively to education in the country.
According to the Minister, a roadmap for the Nigeria education sector and the Presidential Task Team on education has been constituted by the Present administration to address myriads of problems confronting the country.
Giving a break down of government’s support to education through its policies, Wike said.
"The Federal Government has invested the sum of 144,676,101,491 billion naira in basic education as matching grants to states. Also,142,090,569,338 billion naira was received as grants within the period under review by Federal Colleges of education and National Commission for colleges of education.
"125 schools have been built to support out of school children in the North to support about 10.5 Million out of School children in the country.
He maintained that over 7000 teachers have been trained to upgrade teacher's capacity building through the Millennium development goals in the country. In addition, 12 new Universities have been established to tackle access and quality education on the country.
Kingsley Opurum, Abuja/GEE
... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
No comments:
Post a Comment