FG to provide 15m jobs, 10 gigawatts of electricity

The Federal Government has said it would provide at least 15 million jobs for Nigerians by 2020, as captured in the recently launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, gave the assurance at a news conference on ERGP in Abuja yesterday.

He said the implementation of the plan would deliver some key outcomes, including the generation of at least 10 gigawatts of electricity by 2020.

“We want to bring down the rate of unemployment by creating over 15 million direct jobs by 2020 in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, services and particularly among the youth.

“We want the manufacturing sector to grow at average of 8.5 per cent, peaking 10.6 per cent by 2020.

“We want agriculture to also grow by 6.9 per cent over the plan period; we want self-sufficiency in rice and wheat by 2018 and 2020 at the end of the plan period.

“We want 60 per cent reduction in imports of refined petroleum products by 2018 and to become a net exporter of refined crude by 2020.

“We expect an average of 4.6 per cent average real GDP growth rate over the plan period with 7 per cent by 2020; we want to achieve single digit inflation rate by 2020.

“We want to increase crude oil output from 2.2 million barrel per day (mbpd) to 2.5 mbpd by 2020.

“We want to achieve 10 gigawatts of operational electricity capacity by 2020.’’

Udoma stated that the ERGP evolved from the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), which government had been implementing since 2016.