|
|
Nigeria: FG Dumps IMF's Policy Support Instrument
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Daily Trust (Abuja)
8 July 2008
Posted to the web 8 July 2008
Idris Ahmed
The Federal Government yesterday announced the suspension of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for poverty reduction.
The Minister of State for Finance, Remi Babalola, made the announcement at the opening of a two-day conference in Abuja on financing the seven-point agenda through the capital market.
The IMF's framework for PSIs which was approved for Nigeria on October 17, 2005, was designed for low-income countries that may not need IMF financial assistance, but still seek close cooperation with the IMF for the preparation and endorsement of their policy frameworks.
The Obasanjo administration had used the PSI to design the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS), but Babalola said Nigeria is capable of regulating herself.
He said: "We will be making public, a successor programme to the Policy Support Instrument which will further reinforce our self regulation to benchmark our economic performance and pursue policies that will apply positively to the growth of the economy.
Hopefully, in the next few months, the Public Private Partnership (PPP) legal/regulatory framework will be published. This will state the project areas of interest, the bidding and approved processes, among others. We are all eagerly awaiting this as we have started receiving a record number of proposals for PPP projects, even without any framework in place."
The minister said stakeholders in the key sectors of the economy would contribute inputs to the formulation of the government policies for the implementation of the 7-point agenda. "The 7-point agenda defines the framework for policy implementation to accelerate economic growth and reforms leading to visible difference to ordinary Nigerians. This is the more reason why this conference cannot be a talk-shop but an action-oriented intervention", he added said.
He said the rapid transformation of the nation's economy, especially the contribution of the non-oil sectors, have shown remarkable improvements with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing at the rate of above six percent.
"It is envisaged that the country will end the year with above 7 percent GDP growth rate. Globally, it is agreed that these positive developments are conducive to and supportive of a good private sector growth.
|
"I therefore, wish to call on the private sector via the capital market to harness this positive outlook of the Nigerian economy and make remarkable contributions to the achievement of the economic agenda of government.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
