IFC Official Faults Nigeria’s Economic Recovery Plan

Ambode seeks robust strong peer reviews among states

Gboyega Akinsanmi

An official of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Ms. Essien Lore yesterday faulted the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, which the federal government formally unveiled penultimate week, describing it as ambitious and its timeframe as relatively short.

However, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has challenged all states of the federation to devise strategies to meet people’s expectation at the period of national economic crisis.

Essien, the Country Director of the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group faulted the plan at the inaugural meeting of Secretaries to the Governments of States held in Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday.

The meeting, which office of the Secretary to Lagos State Government, Mr. Tunji Bello hosted at the Renaissance Hotel, Ikeja, was attended by all Secretaries to the Governments of States under the control of All Progressives Congress (APC).

The meeting was convened at the instance of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) with a view to setting strategic implementation framework for social development in their respective states.

At the meeting, Ambode noted that the APC governors “are fully committed to the vision of providing accountable and responsive leadership to citizens in spite of the dire financial strains confronting the country.”

Giving background to Nigeria’s economic crisis at the inaugural meeting, Essien acknowledged that the plan “is really a plan of plans because there is a number of plans underpin that particular plan.”

She, thus, said the plan really “offers an opportunity to sit down and think about what are the priorities. The plan is quite ambitious. But what are the priorities that we can think about collectively?

“This is because at the end of the day, we believe the plan is for a period between 2017 and 2020. It is relatively short period of time. That is why we want to know what the priorities are. How the federal government intends to achieve what it started in the plan.”