#GEJAchievements in Economy: Stable Macroeconomic Environment
Our current stable macroeconomic environment provided the platform for the strong performance observed across the various sectors. Inflation remains in single digits. Our budget deficit of 1.85% of GDP is one of the lowest in the world. In the 2013 fiscal year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported quarterly GDP growth of 6.56%, 6.18% and 6.81% in Q1, Q2 and Q3 respectively.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Largest Economy in Africa
Under our watch, Nigeria’s economy became the largest in Africa. Our economy is also one of the fastest growing in Africa and among the emerging markets. This finding is based on external reports by institutions such as the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Enabling Environment for the Private Sector
Our government has provided an enabling environment for the private sector to drive growth/investment in infrastructure projects through PPPs and other innovative financing models. In addition to a stable macroeconomic environment, we are investing in priority infrastructure sectors such as power, roads, rail, aviation, etc. We have also implemented supportive fiscal policies by providing appropriate incentives such as waivers and tax concessions to support private sector investments. We have provided exemptions to key sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, aviation, power, solid minerals and so on. These fiscal incentives are provided on a sector-wide basis.

#GEJAchievements in Economy: Prudent Debt Management
Part of our strategy for creating an enabling environment for the private sector is a prudent debt strategy, and this has now yielded one of Nigeria’s biggest advantages – a very low debt-to-GDP ratio. As a result, the country receives favourable credit ratings from international ratings agencies like Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody, unlike several other countries whose rising debts have led to their ratings being downgraded.

Our favourable credit ratings have improved the nation’s investment appeal considerably, and we are now the top foreign investment destination in Africa with $7 billion in 2012 alone. Now we can borrow reasonably affordable loans (e.g. the Eurobond) to finance infrastructure. It has enabled the private sector to access international credit markets to raise long-term funds at low interest rates to finance infrastructure projects.

Our administration supports a very prudent approach to debt. In the first instance, all borrowings, external and domestic, undertaken by the Federal Government have the prior approval of the National Assembly through the Medium-Term External Borrowing Programme and the annual Appropriation Acts in line with the provisions of the Constitution. There has not been any attempt whatsoever to hide the details of the country’s debt stock from Nigerians. Nigeria’s debt statistics are one of the most transparent in the world, and the Debt Management Office (DMO) was recently acknowledged by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) as one of the best in Africa. The DMO updates and publishes the public debt stock on a quarterly basis on its website (www.dmo.gov.ng) which is easily available and accessible.

The DMO also produces its Annual Report and Statement of Account, which is published on the website and widely circulated in print to all relevant stakeholders, including the National Assembly. This Administration has worked hard to reduce borrowing. What borrowing there is externally is linked to projects and directly productive activities. Domestic borrowing on the other hand goes to finance budget deficit and we are working to curb this.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Privatisation of Power Sector
For the first time in Nigeria’s history, we have successfully privatised the electric power industry. This is indeed worth celebrating as a major economic achievement in 2013. Given the challenges of the power sector in the last three decades, the importance of power to our economic development, and the inability of past governments to adequately fund investments in the sector or to manage it, it makes sense to privatise the sector and allow the sector to be run in a business-like manner with strong oversight by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. Our administration did not make the decision to privatise – it was long decided that the government could not manage the power sector and had indeed failed to do so over three decades. We had the singular achievement of actually implementing the plans started three administrations ago.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Fiscal Reforms
Our administration introduced reforms to government spending systems and processes such as the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the Government Integrated Financial Management and Information System (GIFMIS), and the Treasury Single Account (TSA). These reforms have helped to curb waste.

Added to all these measures, we created a Sovereign Wealth Fund to ensure that the government has a mechanism that can help it absorb shocks in times of economic trouble so that what happened in 2008 would not happen again. The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) was created to manage the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).

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#GEJAchievements: Financial Sector Reforms
In 2010, the banking sector was in the grip of serious financial crisis relating to issues in its capital asset base, liquidity ratios, corporate governance and risk management—all of which weakened the system. These were made worse by the global financial crisis. Nine Nigerian banks were in serious distress and unable to meet the minimum 10% capital adequacy ratio and 25% minimum liquidity ratio. The banks also had a high proportion of non-performing loans, and asset mismatches as a result of serious over exposure to the oil and gas sector and the capital markets, which were hard hit by the crisis.

With confidence waning, we urgently executed reforms and these included the introduction of a new banking model, streamlining of the supervisory process, and injection of capital and ancillary measures. N620 billion was injected into the banks to shore up the nine banks in need of most urgent help. Other reforms included strengthening of the way processes and payments are coordinated between different banks, establishment of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), introduction of the cashless policy in 2011, amendment of the cost of banking services. In addition, steps were taken to make banking available to more Nigerians (financial inclusion), and the Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN) code was enforced.

These measures have resulted in improvement to the financial sector. The banking industry is now well capitalised following the successful completion of the recapitalisation of 8 of the 9 distressed banks. The asset quality of banks have also improved as the average capital adequacy ratio rose from 4.03% in December 2010 to 16.7 % at end March 2014, higher than the global threshold of 10.0 %. Non-Performing loan has also decreased from 34.5% in November 2010 to only 3% as at March 2014.

The Mobile Money initiative has continued to enhance financial inclusion with the number of Nigerians without access to banking services declining from 46.3 percent in 2010 to 37.9 percent in 2013. Access to credit for the real sector has also been improved through a wide range of financial support. The Nigeria financial sector is now characterised by larger, stronger banks, an efficient payment system and improved financial infrastructure.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Diversifying the Economy
We have also made strident efforts at expanding and diversifying the Nigerian economy and focusing additional attention on the non-oil sector. We have introduced measures to bring more people and entities into the tax net, improve tax collection including collecting additional non-oil tax revenue of N75bn. This involves the redrafting of existing tax laws in an easily understood language, thus reducing the cost of compliance. The FIRS is also reviewing the introduction of technology that would enable taxpayers file tax returns online. These initiatives will go a long way to improve Nigeria’s global competitiveness.

Nigeria has a very vibrant economy and one of the most versatile sets of investors and entrepreneurs. The Nigerian economy offers one of the highest rates of return on investment, and this is why we are the largest investment destination in Africa. Despite the impediments and the difficulties, many Nigerian businesses are still investing in the economy, and it is their activity that is driving economic growth. We have 32 million SMEs in the country. That being said, SMEs face difficult challenges of which the cost of borrowing is an important one. That is why, in the short term, SMEs have enjoyed several intervention funds including N200 billion at the Central Bank.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Better Standards of Living
Nigeria was honoured for meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing people living in absolute hunger by half well ahead of the 2015 target set by the United Nations. On average, about 20 percent of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) is allocated exclusively to protecting the poor through different types of social safety nets. One important area of success is the Conditional Grant Scheme with total conditional cash transfer to almost 40,000 households and recruitment of over 2,000 new health workers working on improving maternal and child health. Also by February 2013, almost 120,000 Nigerians were benefitting from the Public Works, Women and Youth Employment Programme.

Through the Subsidy Re-investment Programme (SURE – P), we allocated funds for specific infrastructural projects and social safety net programmes. The areas selected for SURE–P intervention include infrastructure development projects such as construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, and railways; safety net programmes, community service, women and youth empowerment programme (including the Graduate Internship Scheme), Maternal and Child Health Program, Mass Transit program, Public Works (including FERMA), Vocational Training, Culture and Tourism

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Building Local Capacity
As a large and important country in Africa, we have the objective of producing most of our goods domestically so we can be more self-reliant and reduce our dependence on imports. As in other emerging and advanced economies – such as South Korea, Malaysia and China – fiscal policy incentives can serve as one of the instruments to support our industrial policy. These policy measures are also partly intended to serve as incentives to support our private sector given some of the regulatory challenges faced in the domestic business environment.

These policies include reduced import duty rates or waivers for equipment and materials for the hospitality, power and aviation sectors; for agricultural machinery; for solid mineral equipment; for gas-using equipment; for the steel sector; for specific manufacturing sub-sectors (e.g. for imports of completely-knocked down parts) and for automobiles and tyres. There are also additional programs such as the Export Expansion Grants (EEG) Scheme designed to promote Nigeria’s non-oil exports. We see these sectors as strategic areas which can stimulate growth, support diversification of the Nigerian economy, and create jobs for Nigerians.

In the past, waivers were granted to individual businesses in an approach that resulted in rent-seeking behaviours and an uneven playing field for other businesses. It was precisely the need to stop such a discretionary approach that led to reforms by the Economic Management Team under the leadership of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. A sector-wide waiver policy was introduced to provide specific incentives for some strategic, job-creating sectors. Under this regime, all businesses in a sector have access to the same incentives.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Nigeria on the Global Scene
As the giant of Africa, Nigeria is playing a prominent role in world affairs. Our election to a seat on the United Nations Security Council is a source of pride – not only for Nigerians, but indeed for the entire African continent. Our hosting of the World Economic Forum conference – one of the most important gatherings of global businesses and policy-makers – is a strong endorsement of Nigeria’s importance among emerging market economies.

For many years, the WEF Africa Conference has been held in South Africa – although Nigeria had requested for many years to serve as the hosts. We are therefore pleased that the 24th World Economic Forum on Africa was held in Abuja from May 7 – 9 2014. The conference was financed from three sources – the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Nigerian private sector and the World Economic Forum. Because the event attracts Heads of Governments and Statesmen, CEOs of global firms, leading financiers and policy and development technocrats, from over 80 countries, it offered an unprecedented opportunity for economic diplomacy for Nigeria.

The successful hosting of the event further enhanced the appreciation of our economic reforms, enabled Nigeria to attract new investment and strengthened efforts to diversify the country’s production base, generate employment and move towards achieving the goal of inclusive growth, especially in new areas of focus that include agriculture, automobile, light manufacturing, infrastructure, housing and construction and new technology.

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#GEJAchievements in Economy: Long-term Plan for Development
The Nigeria Vision 20:2020 provides a long-term plan with concrete strategies needed to launch Nigeria onto a path of sustained and rapid socio-economic development. Vision 20:2020 builds on the previous National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS), and is based on three pillars: to guarantee the productivity and wellbeing of the people of Nigeria; to optimise the key sources of economic growth; and to foster sustainable social and economic development.

Our administration also initiated the Transformation Agenda (TA) which is based on the Vision 20:2020 and the First National Implementation Plan. The Transformation Agenda targets thematic areas such as the real sector; infrastructure development; human capital development; and private sector investments.

In addition to the Transformation Agenda, there are also macroeconomic frameworks and sectoral master plans which are used to guide the formulation of government programmes. For example:

 For macroeconomic planning, we currently have the fiscal strategy paper (FSP) and the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) which present the government’s revenue and expenditure forecasts in the medium-term.
 For our industrial policies, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investments recently developed the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), which aims at industrialising Nigeria and diversifying the economy into sectors such as agro-processing, light manufacturing, and petrochemicals.
 For our long-term infrastructure investments: the National Planning Commission developed the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) which provides a comprehensive 30-year infrastructure development plan for Nigeria.

#GEJAchievements in Economy: Job Creation
Our government’s economic achievements are creating demonstrable impacts for the average man on the street. In agriculture, over 250,000 farmers and youths were employed in rice faming across ten Northern States. In manufacturing, new jobs have also been created across the country. In the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone alone we created an estimated 30,000 jobs. The Government’s special intervention programs are also creating jobs opportunities. The YouWiN program has supported young Nigerian entrepreneurs and created over 18,000 jobs. The SURE-P Community Services Scheme has also created 120,000 job opportunities across the country, and the Federal Government’s investments in the primary health care services also generated an estimated 178,000 jobs.

"Jonathan met Naira and it moved from Goodluck to Badluck" - In Rev. Fr. Mbaka's voice

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GEJ my hero