By Egena Sunday Ode
No fewer than 2 million jobs have been both created and saved with the implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) introduced by the Federal Government to mitigate the harsh effects of Covid-19 pandemic.
Although the target of N2.3 trillion estimated to be spent under the plan has not been achieved yet, the Federal Government appropriation part of that total being N500 billion has been completely released by the end of May, making it possible to attain several objectives of the ESP directly supporting a few million Nigerians.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo disclosed this at a virtual meeting of the Economic Sustainability Committee measuring implementation he presided over on Monday.
He said while a total of 2,100,021 jobs have been saved and created all together, the breakdown of the figures indicated that 1.3 million jobs have been retained through interventions in the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) space, including the Payroll Support. The 774,000 jobs from the Public Works Programme and 26,021 Jobs from construction /rehabilitation projects across the country were among those freshly created.
On the implementation of the ESP, a statement by the Laolu Akande, media aide to the Vice President, quoted Osinbajo to have said the 100% release of funds appropriated in the budget for the programme was commendable and urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to expedite action on the release of funding components of the ESP that are dependent on financing from the bank.
According to the him, “our budget funds were released in total. I thank the Honorable Minister of Finance for ensuring that it was done promptly, which means, in effect, that as far as the budget goes, we have been able to do what we practically promised to do.
“I know that if we were able to infuse N2.3 trillion into the Nigerian economy, we will not have the employment figures that we have today, we will not have the problems that we have today, they will be significantly reduced. Even with what we are able to do with the budget, growth figures at least indicate that things have not degenerated as badly as many had thought.
“So, you can imagine what we could have done if we were able to fully implement what we thought we would be able to implement. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case. We hope that in the next couple of weeks, we will be able to get some good response on more funds that we expect to get from the CBN which will help us to make some progress on the implementation.”
