Jonathan inaugurates economic team, calls for transformation

ABUJA – President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday inaugurated the 24-man National Economic Management Team, NEMT, with a charge to fast track the economic development of the nation.

At the brief ceremony, the President said “as a government we have made substantial gains in our objective of accelerating the pace of economic development in our country over a short period of time; I believe that with the economic management team in place, and with the commitment of its members, we will be in a vantage position to achieve a lot more”.

Jonathan said “I want to remind us once more, that our goals and aspirations to make Nigeria a better country can only be achieved if we all work together as a team. This is important. In the meantime, I am quite pleased with the level of enthusiasm and comradeship that I observe among ministers and ministers of state but the value of all that can only be measured in terms of the quality of our outputs and how well we are able to meet the people’s expectations”.

He charged members of the team to “combine their individual strengths, to generate ideas and initiatives in line with our goal of transforming every sector of Nigerian life and society, particularly the economy”.

Jonathan maintained that “the economy is of course, at the heart of this administration’s transformational agenda. We are looking forward to greater fiscal discipline, a continuously improving framework to support local and international investors, and effective macro-economic and monetary policies. Our emphasis should be one of inclusive growth and employment generation. Economic growth should necessarily translate into measurable benefits for our people”.

The president urged the NEMT to “fast-track the implementation of the medium term plan in line with our commitment to the realization of the Vision 2020 aspirations”.

“Our people want to see improvements not only in terms of reduced inflation, higher economic growth and economic diversification but also in job creation, better school enrollment, improved access to health care and a more sustainable environment. They want regular and sustainable electricity supply, higher purchasing power, social infrastructure, and in every sense, this is all about the economy,” he said.

The president stressed that the inauguration of the team “marks the beginning of an exciting collective journey in our attempt to strengthen the Nigerian economy”.

The President said the Economic Management Team is set up to coordinate the rapid growth of our economy and not to take over the responsibility of managing the various ministries under the leadership of the individual ministers.

-By Daniel Idonor 

Source: Vanguard