By Yusuf Boluwatife
Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday, stated that the present administration has saved over one million jobs and forestalled the closure of over 150,000 small businesses hit by COVID-19, through the Economic Sustainability Plan.
Osinbajo made this known in Abuja while speaking virtually during a United Nations High-Level Forum on Jobs and Social Protection.
This was contained in a statement by his spokesperson, Laolu Akande.
According to him, Nigeria’s response to the fallouts of COVID-19 was guided by the conviction that “social protection schemes are crucial, and can break the cycle of poverty, give real access to jobs and economic opportunities, and improve human capacity and productivity.”
He added that the Economic Sustainability Plan which was the government’s response is aimed at restoring growth by mitigating the macroeconomic shocks, tackling the health challenge, averting business closures, protecting and creating jobs, protecting the poor and vulnerable while repositioning the economy for future resilience.
The Vice President explained that “in addition to scaling up health interventions, the Plan contained labour-intensive interventions in agriculture, housing, and public works programmes and the provision of solar energy to 5 million homes.
“The ESP also had a Survival Fund which gave payroll support to small businesses in manufacturing and services as well as to artisans and transporters. As a result of our interventions, we have been able to provide finance and off-take opportunities for millions of farmers.
“We have also been able to save up to one million jobs and prevented the close-down of at least 150,000 small businesses. We are also able to extend support to vulnerable groups by deepening our existing social intervention programmes and the development of a Rapid Response Register for cash transfers to the urban poor.”
He also restated the call for improved access to vaccines and sustained funding of gas projects, stating that “we believe also that the already challenging global environment is now being further complicated by lack of access to vaccines as well as by policy moves in developed economies and international financial institutions to defund gas projects.”
On climate change, he said, “It is clear that climate change and environmental damage will harm the prospect of creating jobs in many countries of the world including ours. Yet we know that access to energy is vital for generating the fast growth required to create jobs and to provide the resources for social protection.
“For a gas-rich country like Nigeria, we have to deploy gas not only for electricity but also to reduce the carbon emissions that result from the use of firewood and coal for cooking.”
Osinbajo had at various fora, raised the issue of financing of gas projects in developing countries, like Nigeria, advocating for a just transition and more effective engagements towards the target of Net-Zero Emission by 2050.
