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From Uche Usim, Abuja
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, on Tuesday disclosed that N502.3 billion has so far been spent by the Federal Government to stabilize the economy after being hit by the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking in Abuja at the national dialogue on COVID-19 economic impact and assessment of national and states’ recovery plans and policy options, the Minister explained that Nigeria was deeply affected by the pestilence because it was recovering from recession before COVID-19 led to an all-time fall of crude oil prices being the economic pillar of the country.
She listed key interventions to include: the establishment of a N500 billion COVID-19 crisis intervention fund to finance the upgrade and improvement of healthcare facilities; creation of a Special Public Works Programme to employ 774,000 people, among others.
The Minister added that the development demanded a cocktail of stimulus packages which were administered to rescue the economy from the doldrums.
She said: “You know that in the 2020 budget N500 billion was appropriated and it was fully funded, but apart from that we also have the economic sustainability plan that is totaling N2.3 billion which is in the form of intervention funds from the CBN, which means loans are given to the private sector and they pay back later.”
Mrs Ahmed, however, disclosed that lessons were learnt from the pandemic, especially the urgent need to fix the challenges of the health sector.
According to her, the myriads of challenges plaguing the health sector propelled the incumbent to pursue proactive and people-oriented policies with emphasis on human capital development and providing critical infrastructure for the well-being of Nigerians.
She added: “The pandemic has required that we take a critical look at our health and economic policies, to swiftly introduce crisis management measures, catalyze support to the health sector, and accelerate certain key reforms while reimagining others entirely.
“Several fiscal measures were put in place to balance health and economic issues in addressing the burden of COVID-19 on Macro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), as part of the integrated policy framework which ensures coherence in fiscal, economy and health positions”.
The Minister assured that the government will continue to make critical investments in key sectors including agriculture, infrastructure, health, and education to provide jobs for millions of unemployed youths as well as support SMEs.
“Additionally, we are focusing on enabling digital transformation and disruptive innovation, a key driver for MSME innovation and scale up across the country,” she added.
She assured that the ministry will partner with “SEDIN in its support to national and sub-national Governments in Nigeria. In particular, the continued empowerment of micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) is a critical driver for building back better in Nigeria and across the African continent. We look forward to receiving the final report of today’s Dialogue and the results.”
In her address, Representative of GIZ SEDIN Head of Programme, Ana Vinambres, disclosed that the SEDIN project has helped to attract funds for small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) and small holder farmers.
According to her, this has been through bank loans and access to inputs.
“The SEDIN programme has also widely contributed to the immediate, medium and long term response to COVID19, including the facilitation of funds for MSMEs and farmers to cover their immediate liquidity issues from government’s targeted facilities, commercial banks and impact investors, the access to raw Inputs and compost production at a time when trade was impacted, facilitating linkages to open markets and identifying collection centers closed to producers to avoid profiteering”, she explained.
