Vision 2020 not to make economy best —FG

President Goodluck Jonathan
| credits: dailypost.com.ng

The Federal Government on Wednesday said its Vision 2020 was not intended to make the nation one of the best economies in the world by the 2020 as erroneously believed by many.

The Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, explained this to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Usman and the Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, had earlier taken turns to brief the council on the achievements and challenges of their respective ministries in 2012.

They were joined at the briefing by the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku.

When asked whether the country was currently in a good stead to achieve the Vision 2020 as postulated by the government, Usman said contrary to the general belief, government’s target was to make the nation one of the top economies “by size of Gross Domestic Product.”

He said, “On Vision 2020, we are doing assessment as we go along. When we started, Ngeria was 44th in terms of Gross Domestic Product. Now we are 39th. We are making progress.

“What we said was that we are going to be one of the top economies by size of GDP, we did not say we will be one of the best economies.”

Usman said his ministry would produce the country’s 2012 report before June.

He said one of the ministry’s parastatals, the National Bureau of Statistics, achieved 100 per cent in the production of statistics during the year under review.

He added that the Centre for Management Development in Lagos also succeeded in training more than 12,000 public officials in the year under review.