The Federal Government on Monday inaugurated a Finance Sectoral Consultative Committee for the effective coordination of statistical data in the ministry of finance and its agencies. The Permanent Secretary in Ministry of finance, Dr. Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, inaugurated the committee at the headquarters of the finance ministry in Abuja.
The membership of the committee is drawn from departments/unit of finance ministry, the representatives of the National Bureau of Statistics and Central Bank of Nigeria. Others are the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Debt Management Office, the Nigeria Export-Import Bank, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria.
The committee’s task is the coordination of all stakeholders responsible for production of finance statistics. The inauguration was in line with the recommendations of the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics recently launched by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Speaking, the Statistician-General, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr Yemi Kale, urged the Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies to cooperate with the committee to ensure efficiency in data collection.
He said, “These data will assist the government in economic analysis and planning. It will also assist the government in the economic restructuring of the nation.”
Similarly, the Head of Economic Cooperation and Energy of the European Union, Mrs Nadia Cannata, pledged the union’s continued support to the committee’s work.
She said that the EU had provided N20m to Nigeria to provide technical support and build the capacity of major stakeholders to ensure improvement of statistics collection.
