By EMMANUEL ELEBEKE

The Supervising Minister of National Planning, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, has called for strategic collaboration between federal and state governments towards initiating appropriate policies and programmes for job creation and equality income distribution.

Beneficiaries of the Youth Employment Scheme of Oyo (YES-O)

Ambassador Yuguda made the call at the weekend during a meeting of the National Council on Development Planning, NCDP, in Bauchi State.

The minister noted that federal government’s effort towards addressing unemployment is focused on multiple strategies including substantial investment in technical and vocational education as well as improving the business environment.

“It is clear that the task of ensuring inclusive growth, job creation and equity is a very enormous one. We need to jointly initiate appropriate policy towards creating job employment for the teeming Nigerian youths and ensuring equality in income distribution. “There is the need for cooperation among all tiers of government in order to achieve our desired vision,” said the minister.

According to him, significant employment is not created by large companies, but by numerous small and medium sized enterprises.

Yuguda stated that federal government programmes aimed at improving the business environment are already paying off with a total of 1.6 million net new jobs created in 2013, and admitted that several challenges still remain especially in reducing high rate of unemployment among the youth, tackling income inequality in the country as well as insecurity in the north.

“It is reassuring to note that the federal government is closely working with state governments in addressing the new security challenges, building and strengthening institutions, as well as blocking leakages and loopholes for greater transparency in the conduct of government businesses,” he said.

In the area of strategic planning, he said that significant achievements has been made in implementation of strategic plan in the last three years in particular, stressing that Nigeria is now ranked  26th in the world  and the largest economy in Africa, especially  after the rebasing of its GDP.

Yuguda also pointed out that the Growth Enhancement Scheme, GES, of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda has facilitated the provision of  subsidised inputs to farmers via the e-Wallet programme while 1.1 million metric tonnes of dry season rice was produced in 10 northern state in 2013.

He acknowledged that Nigeria has for over a decade recorded accelerated GDP growth driven mainly by agriculture, trade, telecommunications and building and construction.
The theme of the meeting is “National Strategic Planning for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development: Fostering Job Creation and Equity.”