The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo-Udoma, has reaffirmed the commitment of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration  to strengthening the linkage between plans and budgets in order to ensure better implementation of projects and programmes.

The Minister was speaking at a sensitization workshop on “addressing the approach to developing the medium-term sector strategies, MTSS, and plans”, organized by his Ministry for Federal Permanent Secretaries and Head of Ministries Departments and Agencies, MDAs.

The workshop was intended to bring the participants up to speed with the process of developing the MTSS as well as its relevance to the budget preparation process.

He said that the failure to link policies, plans, MTSS and budgets has been identified as a major factor that leads to deficient planning and poor budgeting outcomes in many developing countries.

Udoma pointed out that countries with fragmented planning process which does not align with the annual budgeting process usually experience difficulty in implementing clear and consistent national policies, as has been the case with Nigeria.

The Minister noted that the administration was “also committed to fostering inclusive development which explains the unprecedented allocation of N500 billion Naira (half a trillion Naira) to social investment projects in the 2016 Budget of Change”.

Udoma said the workshop was timely, coming at a time the country was experiencing dwindling revenues occasioned by the declining price of crude oil in the international market and other disruptive developments in the polity.

The current MTSS exercise, he pointed out, will be limited to selected critical sectors to support the preparation of the 2017 Budget.

“It is planned to roll out the MTSS process to all sectors/MDAs from 2017 and beyond.  This is aimed at guiding MDAs for more efficient and effective investment of national resources in critical sectors of the economy, in line with the Change Agenda,” he said

Udoma Acknowledged that the MDAs will require technical advice and support to effectively accomplish the exercise, and assured that his Ministry and the Department for International Development, DFID, will provide technical support and sector expertise for building of capacity during the MTSS preparation process.

The Permanent Secretary in the Budget and National Planning Ministry, Nana Mede, said the workshop signaled the flag-off of the MTSS/2017 Budget planning process.