Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday stated that the APC Government
met an economy that was already in a meltdown, due to certain wrong
decisions that were taken in the past.
He assured Nigerians that Muhammadu Buhari administration is doing its
best to save the situation, adding that the country did not adequately
exploit the oil boom era to invest in infrastructure and in the area of
diversifying the economy.
The Vice-President, who disclosed this while inaugurating the
agricultural sector road map titled, ‘The Green Alternative: Agriculture
Promotion Policy 2016 – 2020’, in Abuja, said, “The present
administration came into office to meet an economy essentially in
meltdown.”
He said the Federal Government had concluded that before the end of
September this year, the Bank of Agriculture would start giving out
single digit interest loans to farmers in Nigeria.
On the issue of economic recession, he expressed worry that during the
period when oil was sold for over $100 per barrel, the country did not
increase investment in infrastructure.
“We knew that we had to set alright the economy and put it back on the
path of sustainable growth with job opportunities for our teeming
population. So, one of the critical components of that plan is to
position agriculture as the arrow-head of our economic recovery efforts.
If we get agriculture right, we will get our economy right.”
Osinbajo stated that the road map identified two key challenges and that
the first was the inability to meet domestic food requirement.
He said this is a productivity issue driven by Nigeria’s inefficient input systems and farming models.
He said the second challenge was the inability to export at levels
required by the market and that this was due to an inefficient system,
weak inspectorate measures and poor coordination among relevant
agencies.
“The Green Alternative has set out strategies for resolving these
challenges. I’m personally impressed that the road map does not dismiss
the agricultural policy of the past,” he added.
The Vice-President noted that the plan in the road map aligned with other economic policies of the Federal Government.
He said, “Just to give some obvious examples, we cannot have a policy of
encouraging local production of food and on the other hand have a high
tariff on imported agricultural equipment. There is no way that we can
encourage local production while we allow unbridled importation of the
same things that we are trying to produce.”
Osinbajo observed that the financing of agriculture was also a crucial
policy, adding that “with double digit interest rate at the moment, we
have developed some funding options in the short term.”
He stated that the anchor borrowing programme of the Central Bank which
allowed farmers to get loans at single digit interest rates had been
very useful, as it was pivotal in enabling rice farmers in Kebbi State
to increase their production considerably.
“The Ministry of Finance has concluded plans to recapitalise and
re-engineer the Bank of Agriculture. We expect that before the end of
this quarter, the BOA should be able to give single digit interest rate
loans to farmers,” he said.
The inauguration of the agricultural road map had various ministers and heads of different agencies of government in attendance.
No comments:
Post a Comment