Idris Ahmed
27 October 2009
Abuja — If Nigeria continues to do business as usual its Vision 20: 2020 objectives will not be met, the World Bank Country Director said yesterday.
Onno Ruhl said at the dissemination of Nigeria Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) document for 2010 - 2013 in Abuja that Nigeria has the potentials to realise the dreams if the right things are put in place.
"But if business as usual will be the result, you can not achieve the vision 2020", Ruhl told newsmen.
Nigeria government has set the year 2020 as a target to be among the world largest economies.
Ruhl said the World Bank and other partners will play small role in the country's ambition.
"The vision is very much a Nigeria exercise. The only thing that militates against the country realising its dreams is if there isn't national collective decision to realise that dream", he said.
He said he is not worry about Nigeria repaying its debts of about $3.4 billion to the Bank, but the realisation of the Vision 2020 target.
He said: "Nigeria's debt is extremely low. I am not worry about that aspect. What I am worry about is whether the adoption of vision 2020 will be the turning point where Nigeria will actually dedicate itself to deliver the result to realise its ambition.
"That to me is the value of vision 2020. If that happens, a couple of billion dollars of debts is very small. The issue is which path Nigeria embarks upon.
"But if it is business as usual, you can not achieve the vision 2020. The only thing that will allow Nigeria tao realise its dream is to decide that this dream is more important than anything else and therefore top decision will be taken to realise the dream. Nothing in terms of potential will stop Nigeria from realising that objective."
The Minister of National Planning Dr. Shamsudeen Usman said at the event that the Vision 2020 is anchored on three pillars. He was represented by Ayodele Omotosho, a Director in the Ministry.
He said the pillars include guaranteeing the well-being and productivity of the people; optimizing the key sources of economic growth; and fostering sustainable social and economic development.
He said: "The three pillars are based on the prevalence of a sound and stable micro economic environment. The targets for Nigeria by the year 2020 is to achieve a GDP of not less than US$900 billion and a per capita income of not less than $4000.
"In other to achieve these targets, the economy needs to grow at an average annual rate of 13.8 percent during the vision period spanning 2010 - 2020. This will require a real investment growth rate of over 38 percent per annum."
The World Bank said in its overview of Country Partnership Strategy that between 2010-2013, Nigeria's total lending envelop will be $4.5billion. Nigeria's current debt to the Bank is $3.4billion.
The annual debt portfolio approved for Nigeria by the World Bank is $1.5billion. The Bank said the debt is less than 1 percent of Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Ruhl said the $4.5billion will be based on the availability of the International Development Association (IDA) and the Nigeria's performance compared to other IDA borrowers.
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