Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja.
The Federal Government is set to establish delivery units in six ministries to tackle the challenges faced by investors for the effective implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
The Ministry Delivery Units would be set up in the agriculture, transportation, industry, trade and investment, mines and steel development and power works and housing.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, stated this while briefing State House correspondents on Monday after the meeting of the ERGP Central Steering Committee, presided by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
According to him, “Those delivery units will continue with problem solving, critical challenges faced by investors in all those sectors.
“It was agreed that the overall philosophy of the focus labs should be continued as the FG is committed to sponsor a few more mini focus labs to tackle key issues faced by investors.
“So, the focus lab concept is a continuing concept which we are working on and we will do more mini focus labs.”
The minister explained that the steering committee also agreed to establish a special office within the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to focus on the Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) industry.
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He said, “The modalities for that office, which will focus on CTG, is being worked out by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment.”
Udoma added that the electric power sector was also a key focus of Monday’s meeting, adding, “The meeting agreed to redouble its effort at engaging and communicating our single and coherent vision for the power sector working with the private sector.
“It appears that the overall roadmap and impact of several initiatives that the FG is working on is not fully understood. So, we agreed to communicate this single roadmap to the general public.”
He said the steering committee referred a number of issues to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to look into, including wider access of intervention funds to intervention funds by agricultural companies.
The budget and national planning minister also explained that other issues were referred to various ministries to look at and address in the next few weeks.
According to him, “So, we continue to monitor and continue to move forward with the effective implementation of the various projects that came out of the ERGP Focus labs.”
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Asked the extent to which the focus labs have generated jobs and attracted foreign direct investments, he said “this is still the early days”, and that many of the ventures in agriculture and power were still being worked upon.
“And that is why we met to review in each of these,” he said.
Udoma said many of the companies in agriculture have acquired land, while some have got financing.
