Technical committee working to actualise Buhari's poverty eradication programmes – Coordinator

Dr Bassey Ikang, Director Human Resources Management, Ministry of Special Duties, who is also the Coordinator of the IMTEC, made this known at the end of a two-day retreat for the committee.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari in his 2019 Democracy Day address said, “With leadership and a sense of purpose, we can lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.”

In order to achieve the goal, the Federal Government set up IMTEC, under the supervision of the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, to coordinate the activities of the arms of government, ministries and agencies.

The IMTEC members comprised of directors, experts selected from ministries, agencies, parastatal agencies and resources persons to initiate ideas to give a boost to the programme.

According to Ikang, the aim of the inter ministerial forum is for coordination of policies, programmes and projects to actualise President Buhari’s declaration of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

He said the committee had taken a look at the project schedules and agreed to meet up with the 2023 timelines of the scheduled programmes.

“The president says that he will lift 100 millions Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. I don’t think it is just a mere statement. It is a vision and is something that can be actualised.

“The president's vision cuts across all the MDAs, the cumulative effects of all what other MDAs are doing that will give you the result of either lifting 1000 or 5000 people out of poverty.

“And how do you coordinate that if you don’t have machinery put in place for coordination, implementation and reporting.

“This inter-ministerial committee looks at the activities of these MDAs to actualise the vision,“ he said.

The coordinator said the committee would also look at other areas such as private sector driven, donors and even associations, which would give support to the programmes.

“What we are doing is going to be part of appropriation and is going to be part of how to mobilize resources and funds to get it done, but what we do is, there must be that responsibility of coordination.

“Somebody must take that responsibility of making sure that he monitors and get results, “ he said.

He explained further that the forum would focus on special intervention programmes and other areas such as expansion of agricultural activities, climate change among others which could provide job opportunities to Nigerians.

“You will agree that if for example we can establish agro-processing industries across the six geo-political zones, we will be able to create jobs in the country.“