Dr John Kayode Fayemi, the outgoing governor of Ekiti State has launched 30 year Development Plan for Ekiti State with a call on successive governments to embrace the document for the development of the state as a whole.
Performing the ceremony in Ado Ekiti, Governor Fayemi said, the event was a culmination of the process initiated few months ago to articulate a long-term development plan as an integral part of leaving behind a lasting and sustainable legacy for Ekiti Citizens.
The Governor said, the Ekiti State Development Plan (ESDP) 2022-2050 is the manifestation of his dream to have a tailored-made development programme that will enhance fast economic growth of Ekiti State and make Ekiti the destination of choice to visit, live, work and invest in, in Nigeria.
Speaking on the purpose of the plan, Dr Kayode Fayemi said, the Plan was to capture the current needs, potential strengths, clear opportunities and inspirational yearnings of Ekiti Citizens, especially the younger generation and it is designed to serve as an investment promotion plan for Ekiti State as a product, serve as SDG-aligned monitoring, coordination and management tool, a framework to bring existing development strategies into a harmonious, rational coherent whole among others.
According to him,, “the document was deliberately crafted to achieve mitigation against current and anticipated future global threats, develop new strategies for tackling unemployment and improving productivity towards prosperity, improve quality of lives for the citizenry, enhance coordination across all government activities, providing a road map to all MDAs and integrate sector planning and provide the State Leadership and successive administrations with a detailed direction of its productivity and competitiveness ambitions and the strategies required for implementing an economic and social investment plan”.
Fayemi who posited that the success of the development plan depends largely on discipline in implementation, finance, monitoring and evaluation therefore called for proper monitoring and implementation of the document,
While thanking all stakeholders involved in the engagement, The President of the forum of Regions of Africa said the in-coming administration will have the privileged of using the plan document which is a product of collective thinking to further propel Ekiti State to the much-desired destination of irreversible prosperity, peace and progress
In his remarks, the Ekiti state Governor-Elect, Mr. Abayomi Oyebanji commended the Governor for the beautiful initiative and promise to work with the plan.
Mr Oyebanji charged the Speaker of the House of Assembly to ensure that the state Budget, MTEF and other development plans are in compliance with the State Development Plan and ensure that every government follow it to the latter.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr Femi Ajayi applauded Governor Kayode Fayemi for this noble idea to ensure rapid growth and development in Ekiti and aptly describe the document as ‘The People’s Plan’.
The Commissioner further stressed that the document is an all-inclusive and a collective thinking of various stakeholders in the state and therefore charged all MDAs to always align their returns during the preparation of Medium Term Expenditure Framework to the plan.
Present at the ceremony were representative of various stakeholders which included representative of the Political parties, Youth, judiciary, private sector, civil society organization.
Others are Legislature, State Executive Council, Community Development Association, Women association, Academia, Traditional Ruler, Public Service, among others.
Packaged by Emmanuel Adeniran
