The federal and state governments are to spend a total of N1.044bn to compute the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

The Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, disclosed this on Monday during the inauguration of the State Gross Domestic Product Computation in Awka, Anambra State.

The minister said while the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory would contribute N522m, the Federal Government would contribute N313m, while the country’s development partners would contribute the balance of N209m.

He said 11 states had so far paid their own contributions to the fund, while 25 others had yet to pay up.

Usman said a road map for the GDP computation survey had been developed and would be carried out in two phases; the first covering the period December 2011 to October, 2012, while the second phase would cover November 2012 to June 2013.

He said the availability of states’ GDP “is sina-qua non for meaningful and effective development planning and management of the states’ economies.”

Apart from determining the sizes of economic activities for each state of the federation, the minister said, “The GDP computation survey will enhance the states’ involvement in the generation of statistics in accordance with international best practices; provide necessary inputs for designing programmes that would improve the welfare of the people and reduce poverty at the sub-national levels.

“It will also facilitate the determination of variations in economic growth and development across the country; ascertain the level of sectoral linkages in the states for policy formulation and decision making; and identify the key drivers of economic growth with a view to aiding policy decisions in each state.”

The Secretary, National Planning Commission, Mr. Fidel Ugbo, said the capacity building programme embedded in the SGDP survey “will help in creating the needed synergy between the states’ planning commissions, bureaux of statistics and the National Bureau of Statistics for the realisation of their mandates.”

Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, said the South East would fully participate in the SGDP project because it would help raise accurate data for meaningful development.

The state Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Prof. Chinyere Okunna, said the computation of the SGDP should not be seen as an exclusive government project, and urged everyone to cue in and support it

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