The Federal Government plans to provide about three millions jobs in the next three years to cater for the rising cases of joblessness, especially among the youths across the federation.
The Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Alhaji Abba Ruma said this while briefing journalists after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, Tuesday.
The NEC meeting was chaired by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and comprising all the state governors as well as some key ministers in which they deliberated extensively on the proposed commercial agriculture development programme designed to guarantee food security in the country.
Abba said a significant development in commercial agriculture in Nigeria is underway with the final approval of a 200 billion bond.
But the minister noted that a N200 billion bond would be floated by the Federal Government to provide credit facilities to commercial farmers in the country, assuring that the facility would go a longway in boosting the development of agriculture to guarantee food security in the country.
Under the framework, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is expected to source the fund in the next two weeks. End users would not pay more than 10 per cent interest on loans while the apex body will subsidise the rest.
Sources said one or two banks will disburse the fund which will also bear the credit risk.
Meanwhile, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has signed the N3.101 trillion budget for 2009 with a reservation that with the global meltdown, the realities on ground make it an “unworkable document.”
Yar’Adua said at the formal signing of the budget that the indices used to prepare the budget had changed drastically, hence they would not be used as factors with which the 2009 Appropriation was predicated.
The president based his comments on four factors namely the $45 crude oil benchmark against the recent sustained fall in prices, the falling level of oil production as a result of militant activities, the stoppage of the $500 million bond which was approved for listing in the international capital market and the dwindling exchange rate of the naira against the dollar.
However, the president said “the 2009 budget is devoted to sectors which we consider critical to the regeneration of the economy. There is a bias for power supply, transportation and other critical infrastructure.
There is also increased fund for education, health agriculture and other areas critical to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals MDGs. The peace, security and sustained development of the Niger Delta are also a core priority in the 2009 budget.
But, despite the global economic crisis, Yar’Adua said he was optimistic that Nigeria would emerge a better and greater country at the end of the day.