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Goodluck Jonathan,
the presidential candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), has promised to consolidate his administration’s achievements on
the economy, particularly in ensuring that the country attains stable
power supply, while agriculture is commercialised and mechanised to
provide employment to the youth as well as build a stable economy.

His manifestoes,
called ‘Agenda for Transformation’, launched as part of his political
campaign, hinges on a commitment to build an inclusive society where
job creation constitutes a major pillar for economic growth; provision
of cheap and long-term capital for businesses; removal of barriers to
increased productivity; as well as improvement on the environment for
doing business.

He is convinced
that the expansion and development of the downstream sector of the oil
and gas industry would provide about one million jobs for Nigerians,
while the continued expansion of the production capacity in the
upstream sector of the oil and gas industry would earn more revenue to
the country through increased crude oil exports.

Access to development

“Nigeria needs to
build a more inclusive society where every Nigerian would have equal
access to economic and developmental opportunities,” Mr. Jonathan
declared in his blueprint for economic transformation, which also
promises additional economic benefits, including safeguarding the
country’s macro-economic stability.

To ensure that the
improvement in domestic economy impacts on poverty, Mr. Jonathan has
pledged to provide adequate access to economic resources, to help small
businesses grow.

Through the
instrumentation of the Presidential Committee inaugurated last year to
devise ways of enhancing government’s programmes on job creation and
poverty reduction, a N5 billion Business and Development Fund was
established by the Bank of Industry (BOI) in collaboration with the
Dangote Foundation (DF), to provide soft loans to entrepreneurs engaged
in micro, small, and medium scale businesses in the country.

The fund, which
would grant entrepreneurs access at overall single-digits interest rate
of 5%, will be utilised for term loans, working capital loans, leasing
of industrial/business equipment, and trading and allied businesses.

“The provision of
cheap funding to SMEs will come as a great relief to entrepreneurs who
need to reduce their financial costs as they try to deal with high
production costs for generating power and providing other operational
infrastructure,” the president said.

Besides, he said
his administration will continue to support infrastructure for the
development of Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) by boosting the $500
million intervention fund already in place to enable the BOI and
Nigerian Export-Import (NEXIM) Bank continue to lend at single-digit
interest rates, to facilitate increased access of small businesses to
finance, as well as develop Nigeria’s enterprise culture.

Enterprise
Development Centres, Industrial Clusters, and Job Centres are to be
established to collaborate with the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises
Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and 23 Enterprise Development
Centres (EDCs) across the country, to provide business skills training
aimed at improving the managerial capability of entrepreneurs.

At the Job Creation
Summit he hosted last week, Mr. Jonathan reiterated his determination
to initiate various intervention programmes in the key productive
sectors of the economy in all states of the federation, based on their
comparative advantage, to provide incentives for the flow of capital to
the real sectors, to increase productivity and achieve widespread
employment generation, especially for urban and rural youth nationwide.

This is aimed at
creating about 1.5 million income generating employments in the labour
intensive sectors of the economy, namely agriculture, manufacturing,
and building and construction.

Consolidating reforms

In broad terms, Mr.
Jonathan says he hopes to build on the momentum in the
telecommunication sector reform, by replicating the open competition
philosophy in the power sector, where a roadmap has already been
unfolded to drive his administration’s policy option at achieving set
targets.

In the process, the
PDP flag bearer says he has already made it clear to the private sector
operators (formal and informal) as well as local and foreign investors
that he will not hesitate to clear all vested interests that would pose
a threat to quick policy implementation and rapid economic
transformation.

Other proposals
include the consolidation on the Public Works Programme (PWP) to create
1.5 million jobs this year, while a Growth and Employment Pact (GEP)
would enable public-private partnership to enhance growth in
construction, ICT, hide and skin, tourism and entertainment sectors.

Besides, he
believes the power sector roadmap launched last August is on course and
would help improve significantly the country’s electricity supply level
within the next six months when most of the National Integrated Power
Programme (NIPP) projects come on stream, and the transmission and
distribution aspects of the electricity chain are repositioned.

He has also given
assurances that the reforms in the petroleum industry through the
Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) would lead to the diversification of the
sector’s capacity to generate more jobs and create wealth for Nigerians.

At the launch of
what he calls a ‘gas revolution’ in Abuja, Mr. Jonathan said his
government hopes to partner with the private sector to invest over $25
billion to help transform Nigeria into a petrochemical hub in Africa,
with particular emphasis on stimulating the economy to create over one
million direct and indirect jobs in the country.

Are all these campaign rhetoric or well planned agenda? Time will tell.

TOMORROW: CPC Buhari’s agenda