Nigeria’s exit from recession, ESP’s success

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, on Sunday described Nigeria’s prompt exit from recession as a key indicator of the success of the ongoing Economic Sustainability Plan approved by the Federal Government.

He said Nigerians should expect more as the implementation of the plan was gathering momentum.

Akande said this in a statement titled “Presidency: FG poised to do much more through the ESP” which he made available to journalists.

“Like we explained late last year after the release of the third-quarter figures, the Economic Sustainability Plan, which was a calculated intervention by the Buhari Presidency, is driving the Nigerian economy in the right direction-upwards, and Nigerians can expect more because the administration is unrelenting in its determination to pursue the steady recovery and growth of our economy,” Akande noted.

He added that the ESP was entering a more potent phase with the revving up of plans to install five million solar installations across the country and the social mass housing plan that would result in affordable houses for ordinary Nigerians.

He said both aspects would yield hundreds of jobs besides giving the national economy a significant spur.

Akande said that so far, the Survival Fund was making waves with MSMEs, artisans, transport workers, hundreds of thousands receiving cash stimulus, and the payroll support where an equal number of people running into hundreds of thousands employed by businesses are collecting N50,000 monthly.

He said the payroll support covered three months’ salaries for beneficiaries.

According to him, about 311,000 employees have already received the payroll support coming from 64,000 businesses nationwide and over 165,000 artisans have also benefited from the Survival Fund.

In all, the Survival Fund is on course to safeguard at least 1.3million jobs, he added.