by James Sambo
The Federal Government has deployed $14.1 billion to support the real sector of the economy.
Speaking at the Finance Ministry’s ministerial press briefing on Tuesday, 22 October, in Abuja, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that the support was aimed at mobilising finance to bolster the real sector.
She disclosed that most of the funds were independently sourced from the private sector and foreign partners in 2014, while adding that the supports were in credit guarantee and direct financing for the sector.
Okonjo-Iweala stated that most of the funds were of long term maturation ranging from 25 to 40 years, and that the facilities had between 5 and 10 years grace period with zero to 3 per cent interest rate.
Breaking down the sharing formula of the fund, she said $800 billion was mobilised by the government to support agriculture, $280 million to support works and $1.95 billion for power sector.
The sum of $500 million was mobilised for aviation sector to carry out Abuja, Kano, Lagos, Enugu and Port Harcourt airports renovation, while the light rail project got $500 million. $4 billion was earmarked for the Lagos Deep Sea port and $730 million was mobilised to support job creation.
The minister added that the Federal Government was committed to creating 1.2 million jobs per year, disclosing that 500,000 jobs had been created at the end of the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Bashir Yuguda said that private sector involvement in policy formulation was key to economic growth, because of the effective collaboration between the sector and the Federal Government in its economic reforms policies
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