Ease of doing business, self-sufficiency in agriculture… Osinbajo lists achievements of APC govt

In his speech to commemorate two years of the Buhari administration, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo gave highlights of what the All Progressives Congress (APC) has achieved in two years.

Osinbajo said the current administration has delivered in the three areas of security, corruption and economy.

On the economic front, the acting president said the government was able to put in place medium and long term measures that will rebuild the country’s economy away from oil.

Here are 10 out the achievements he listed:

SECURITY

The acting president said government has been able to put Boko Haram “on back foot” because of new leadership and renewed confidence in the military.

He stated that in the last two years over one million displaced persons have returned to their homes, while 106 schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok have regained freedom.

FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION

Osinbajo said the Buhari administration has been able to bring accused persons to justice.

He said the process had been slow because corruption fought back with “tremendous resources and our system of administration of justice has been quite slow”.

He said the government would soon dedicate special courts for corruption cases.

SOCIAL INTERVENTION PROGRAMME

Osinbajo said Nigerians were already telling stories of how the initiatives of the social intervention programme (SIP) have given them a fresh start in their lives.

SIP has home grown school feeding programme, N-power, micro credit scheme for artisans and conditional cash transfer (CCT) as its components.

The acting president said home grown school feeding programme is feeding over one million primary school children across seven states and would have fed three million by the end of the year.

He said N-power had engaged 200,000 unemployed graduates – none of whom needed any ‘connections’ to be selected.

Osinbajo added that micro credit scheme for artisans and the CCT had already begun.

FERTILISER INITIATIVE

The acting president said the presidential fertiliser initiative was as a result of a bilateral cooperation with Morocco.

He said this has led to the revitalisation of 11 blending plants across the country, the creation of 50,000 direct and indirect jobs and the production of 300,000 metric tonnes of NPK fertiliser.

Osinbajo said by the end of 2017, the fertiliser initiative would have led to foreign exchange savings of $200 million and subsidy savings of N60 billion.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN AGRICULTURE

Osinbajo said the country’s import of rice had dropped by 90 percent while domestic production had tripled since 2015.

He explained that the government’s goal was to be able to produce enough rice to meet local demand by 2019.

EASE OF DOING BUSINESS

The acting president said since the implementation of the ease of doing business, progress had been made in several areas.

He explained that there had been reforms at the ports and regulatory agencies.

Osinbajo said the impact of the ease of doing business is gradually being felt by small and large businesses, and its successful take-off has allowed the government follow up with the MSME clinics.

DEVELOPMENT OF SOLID MINERALS

He said in line with government’s commitment to developing the solid minerals, the sector has seen impressive levels of growth, in spite of the recession.

BLOCKING LEAKAGES IN ECONOMY

He said the government had expanded the coverage of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to be more efficient, adding that the efficiency unit of the ministry of finance had succeeded in plugging leakages amounting to billions of naira, over the last two years.

The acting president also said the government had ended the expensive and much-abused fertiliser and petrol subsidy regimes.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND GROWTH PLAN

He said the recently launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020, would consolidate on the gains of the 2016 strategic implementation plan.

Osinbajo said while N1.2 trillion was spent on infrastructure in 2016, what will be spent in 2017 will double the previous year.

UPGRADE OF RAILWAYS

The acting president said a lot of progress had been made in the upgrade of the country’s rail lines to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to upgrade the existing 3,500km narrow-gauge network.

Osinbajo said the government had flagged-off construction on the Lagos-Ibadan leg of standard-gauge network, and is close to completing the first phase of Abuja’s mass transit rail system.