Recession: FG uncertain; 2017 budget will resuscitate economy

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has called for increased partnership between public and private sectors to create more jobs for the teeming unemployment youths in the country.

He said that the federal government on its part was committed to creating an enabling environment and providing required infrastructure for business to thrive.

Osinbajo said that even with the proposed N7 trillion budgeted for 2017, the economy may not feel the impact, submitting that serious partnership with the private sector was one of the ways of ensuring diversification of the economy.

The vice president spoke in Sagamu, Ogun State on Thursday when he led a group of government officials to inspect some food process factory built by Honeywell group and the Shea-Butter Factory owned by the Lad Group.

A copy of the transcript from his office in Abuja quoted the vice president as commending the vision of the individuals.

“The Federal Government very strongly believes that there is no way of delivering on our economic agenda without a serious partnership with the private sector.

“Our entire budget size for 2016 is something in the order of just over six trillion Naira, and we will probably be moving to about seven trillion in the 2017 budget.

“But seven trillion is certainly not the kind of money, it does sound like a fair amount of money, but certainly, it’s not the kind of size that can really make a huge difference in a ninety trillion Naira economy such as we have.

“So the real issue is that, the contribution of the Federal Government is catalytic, the Federal Government can only make some catalytic contributions in terms of infrastructure, and some incentives for the private sector.

“The real contribution is going to come from the private sector and that’s why these partnerships are absolutely important to us, and what we are looking at is some game-changing type of projects, such as we have here. “The types of projects that can make a real difference, because when we are talking about backward integration, the whole rural value chain. When we are saying agriculture is the way to go, from agriculture, we can employ a lot of people and then the whole value chain, from farm to table; we can do so much. “That requires serious investment, it requires the types of enterprises where significant amounts of resources will have to come, in order to make that difference. “And so we are trying to partner with the kinds of serious investors, serious businesses that can really make a difference. And I think that this project is one such investment that I believe will make a significant difference.

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