FG organises 2021-2025 development plan workshop in North East
Chima Azubuike, Gombe
Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, has emphasized the need for states to be carried along in the formulation of Nigeria’s 2021-2025 National Development Plan.
According to her, the only way states can make plans workable, would be when they are involved from the outset.
Represented by Director Special Duties Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr. Gloria Ahmed, who harped the need for states to take ownership to ensure plans become workable.
Ahmed made this disclosure on Tuesday, at a-two day zonal technical meeting on the preparation of the Medium Term National Development Plan (MTNDP), 2021-2025 for North East states.
The North East technical meeting involving Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Taraba, and Yobe states mark the end of input from stakeholders across the six geographical zones.
Ahmed said, “It been perceived that federal plans are national plans, people seat in Abuja and come up with plans and due to lack of ownership those plans were not embraced by the sub nationals and stakeholders.
“So, they never really worked so this time around Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning decided on how to do things differently by engaging stakeholders so that there will be ownership of the plans.”
Also, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning Taraba State, Solomon Elisha, lauded the efforts of Federal Government in ensuring the input of states in development plan of the country.
The commissioner said states have relevant roles to play in ensuring the plan comes to fruition.
He said, “We want to appreciate the federal ministry of budget and National planning for finding it expedient to call for the input of sub national in this Medium term plan once you take away sub national you can not have national. Sub nationals are very expedient and for them to have called for this fora for us to bring in their input is highly appreciated.”
He noted that Taraba has since swayed on the part of development, stressing the introduction of current plans to rescue the state.
“We from Taraba came in with some very high level economic strategists. In our state government of Darius Ishaku came with a rescue mission, so we will bring in some of the element of rescue mission into the rescue plan towards the development of Taraba state, as far a our state is concerned rescue mission has come to stay and it would roll from 2021 to 2050.”
