FG sets up committees for COVID-19 recovery

14 Nov FG sets up committees for COVID-19 recovery

The Federal Government on Friday in Abuja inaugurated Federal Steering Committee and Federal Technical Committee of the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery for Economic Stimulus (N-CARES).

Inaugurating the committees, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, urged members to ensure that post-COVID-19 was not injurious to Nigerians and the economy.

Ahmed explained that diverse and severe impacts of the pandemic were being felt across the world with significant consequences on informal businesses, households and farmers who depended on their farm produce to survive.

He said, “As part of windows of opportunity to mitigate the effect of Covid-19, the Federal Government is in the process of accessing a World Bank loan of 750 million dollars on behalf of the states to stimulate the local economy and support vulnerable household’s consumption.

“Federal Government has created several windows of interventions as captured in the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari on March 30.

“This is to among other things respond robustly and appropriately to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, identify fiscal measures to enhance oil and non-oil government revenues and reduce non-essential spending,” she said.

The Federal Steering Committee is made up of ministers, permanent secretaries, while the technical committee comprised directors of key MDAs.

The major role of the steering committee is to provide overall policy direction for the implementation of the programme and advise the president appropriately.

The federal technical committee would be responsible for the programme oversight, overall guidance, support, coordination, strategic direction, review and approval of the annual work programme as well as budget for the Federal CARES Support Unit (FCSU).

The Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, said that the N-CARES programme was a multi-sectoral programme designed to provide emergency relief to the vulnerable and poor Nigerians.

These according to Agba, including smallholder farmers and SMEs that were adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic using a World Bank loan of N750 million over a period of two years (2021 – 2022).

Agba said that the economy was currently faced with challenges in the economic downturn in its history.

He said that government intervention had become crucial as most of the sectors had been adversely affected.

In his remarks, an Executive Director with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Lateef Shittu, said that N-CARES Programme was to bring succour to the citizenry at this difficult period.