Nine federal ministries will submit proposals to Tinubu on job creation —Minister

To sustain the economic drive of the Federal Government and expand the Nigerian economy for accelerated revenue and job creation, about nine ministries will be submitting a fresh working policy document to the Federal Executive Council in the next six weeks, Sunday PUNCH has gathered.

The Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa-Musawa disclosed this in an interview report made available to our correspondent on Saturday.

Recall that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, on Tuesday presented to President Bola Tinubu an Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan (ASAP), designed to address key challenges affecting the reform initiatives and stimulate development in various sectors of the economy.

According to reports, the plan has given an insight into how the administration seeks to address some of the many problems hindering the effective delivery of some of the economic reforms so far implemented by the current administration.

The plan reportedly captured the Federal Government’s eight priority areas to stabilize the economy and it is broken down into Agriculture and Food Security Sub-Committee plan,  Energy Sub-Committee plan: Oil, Energy Sub-Committee plan: Gas, Energy Sub-Committee plan: Power, Health and Social Welfare Sub-Committee plan, and Business Support Sub-Committee plan.

But in a statement on Thursday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the ASAP policy proposals has not been made official because it will still be subjected to further scrutiny and analysis before being presented to the public.

However, in her interview seen by our correspondent on Saturday, Musa-Musawa said the Federal Executive Council would receive a fresh economic expansion proposal in six weeks which would have inputs from nine ministries in a bid to raise the sum of $100bn to increase the country’s Gross Domestic Products by 2030 and create jobs for no fewer than two million Nigerians in the creative and entertainment industry.

She said, “Last week, the Minister of Trade and Investment and I set up a committee that is going to look into ensuring that within the span of four to six weeks, we have IP protection and securitisation. Already, we have a working document.

“IP protection cuts across the span of many ministries. You have about nine or eight ministries that are involved. So we have to get inputs from all these ministries involved in terms of what they need to be captured within the kind of documents that we are already working with.

“Hopefully, within the next six weeks, we will present that to the executive council and ensure that we have IP securitisation that is needed not only to give the protection of people in the industry but also to ensure that people in the industry can use their IP as collateral.”

She noted that her ministry had been collaborating with eight other ministries to put together the new policy working document owing to the important roles strategic partnership plays in the economic stability of a country.

She said, “Policy framework is central when you talk about building a foundation. We decided to look at all the policies that are needed, the issue of culture policy, creative economy policy, and infrastructure policy. These were some things that we felt were very important. Of course, there is the issue of stakeholder engagement.

“The issue of strategic partnerships is very key. One of the things that we looked at in terms of the potential of the industry was its ability to create an economic expansion. We came up with a very ambitious goal of trying to contribute at least $100bn to increase the GDP by 2030 or 2031. It’s the potential to bring in economic growth.”

On how the Federal Government plans to achieve the $100bn target set for 2030, the minister said, “It is doable. The numbers that we have are based on the metrics out there already.

“The kind of numbers coming in from Spotify, YouTube, and NETFLIX; you look at the number from the great Funke Akindele’s movie, which grossed a billion plus with hardly any major cinema. Can you imagine the numbers that can be generated if we can expand the cinemas?

“If you do that and you can give them infrastructure, you can draw a lot of concerts coming into the country. Nigeria’s movie industry is the second biggest in the world, but they don’t have the infrastructure and the proper backing to be able to produce good productions.

“The productions that we can gross are billions that we are talking about in Bollywood and Hollywood. If you can give them that enabling environment, those numbers are not very difficult if you look at what South Korea and Japan are doing.

“I am just looking at the movie industry, but we have the fashion industry, the music industry, and the culinary industry. Can you imagine the kind of money that we can make just by monetising our jollof or monetising our food? It is not very difficult.  It is not something that can be done overnight, but we need to put in place an enabling environment that would be able to foster a certain amount of growth from 2027 to 2030,” the minister added.

On job creation, she further said, “We hope to create at least two million jobs by 2027. That is our hope, and I think with what we have done so far, we will be able to do that.  Part of our mandate is to engage a younger demographic in almost everything that we do. This is almost all part of job creation, and I have all my agencies pursuing that goal.”