FG Urged to Review Private Sector-Led Development Concept
Friday, November 4, 2005
Lagos
United Nations Ambassador, Economic Development, Africa and the Middle East, Alhaji Mahmoud Umoru has called on the federal government to review its concept of private sector-led economic development.
He said for the concept to materialise in Nigeria, government must ensure that basic infrastructure, including roads, electricity, water and transportation were functional and affordable.
Umoru told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday that although government’s economic reform programmes were laudable, they needed to be harmonised “to reflect the true situation on ground”.
He said that the federal government must first return to the old national development plan scheme.
Umoru lamented that since 1986, the nation had embarked on a number of reform programmes without adequate planning.
“We embarked on reforms without proper planning. We had the First, Second, Third and Fourth National Development Plans, but they were abandoned,” he said.
The Fourth National Development Plan, he said, was handed over to former President Shehu Shagari by the Obasanjo military regime to implement, noting that there had not been any such plan since then.
“Nigeria has, since then apparently been as a ship on the high seas with neither a rudder nor a compass,” he said.
Noting that the country was operating on rolling plans, Umoru said what was needed was “a strategic vision plan to put the nation back on course.”
