 It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the first year ministerial performance review retreat, where meeting at a time that mankind is struggling to overcome the economic and social crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted life as we knew it. The consequences of the pandemic will no doubt influence deliberations at this gathering, especially as we will have to adjust our policy approaches and some methods of working going forward. I stressed at last year's retreat that the Nigerian people expect dedication and commitment from all of us in implementing policies, programs and projects to improve the quality of their lives and to set Nigeria on the path of prosperity. I also reiterated the resolve of this administration to set the stage for lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years. Even today, these remain our overriding objectives. The priorities we set for ourselves were around nine interrelated and interconnected areas, which are stabilizing the economy, achieving agriculture and food security, attaining energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products, improving transportation and other infrastructure, driving industrialization with a special focus on SMEs, expanding access to quality education, affordable healthcare and productivity of Nigerians. Enhancing social inclusion by scaling up social investments as well as building a system to fight corruption, improving governance and strengthening national security. And because of the past year, ministers have rendered reports to the Federal Executive Council on their activities and outputs related to the achievement of these objectives. I chaired all of the meetings of these presentations. Some of the notable achievements include, one, economic recovery, proud to the outbreak of COVID-19, the economy recovered from a recession and we witnessed 11 consecutive quarters of GDP growth since exiting recession. The GDP grew from 0.8% in 2017 to 2.2% in 2019, but declined in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of the downward trend in global economic activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Two, implementation of a willing-buy-willing-seller policy for the power sector. This has opened up opportunities for increased delivery of electricity to homes and industries. We are also executing some crucial projects through the Transmission, Rehabilitation and Expansion Program, which will result in the transmission and distribution of over 11,000 MHz of power by 2023. On transportation, we are growing the stock and quality of our roads, rail, air and water transport infrastructure. The Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund is also progressing well. These include the 11.9 km 2nd Niger Bridge, the 120 km Lagos Ibadra Expressway, and 375 km Abuja Kaduna-Zaria-Karno Expressway. At the same time, we are actively extending and upgrading our railway networks as well as our airports which are being raised to international standards with the provision of necessary equipment to guarantee world-class safety standards. The government has continued to support the agricultural sector, the key to diversification of our economy through schemes such as the CBN Anchor Borrowers Program and the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative Program. The work of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, has also resulted in Nigeria moving up 39 places on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Ranking since 2015, and Nigeria is now rated as one of the top 10 reforming economies. We are confident that the ongoing Ease of Doing Business reforms would result in further improvement of these ratings. Nigeria's law enforcement agencies have significantly scaled up their footprint across the country and as part of the efforts towards strengthening our internal security architecture, the Ministry of Police Affairs was created. Amongst others, we have increased investments in arms, in weapons and other necessary equipment, expanded the National Command and Control Centre to 19 states of the Federation and we've established a Nigeria Police Trust Fund. This will significantly improve funding for the Nigeria Police Force as we've also approved the sum of $13.3 billion for the take-off of the Community Policing Initiative across the country. These are all part of measures adopted to consolidate efforts aimed at boosting security nationwide. Efforts are also being made to empower the youth and provide for the poor and vulnerable groups by enhancing investments in our social investment programmes. These accomplishments are testament to the fact that all hands are on deck in establishing a solid foundation for even greater successes in the future. Honourable Ministers and distinguished participants, when we met one year ago, little did we know that the world will be in a serious economic, social and health crisis that has left even the major economies of the world in disarray due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as in other jurisdictions, the socioeconomic landscape of Nigeria has experienced a severe shock. Nearly 55,000 of our people have been infected with the virus while we've recorded 1,054 deaths by the 4th of September. The economy contracted by minus 6.1% in the second quarter of this year. Normal schooling has been disrupted, businesses are struggling and in certain instances completely closed. Many people have lost their jobs and their means of livelihood for so many Nigerians. Making a living has become extremely difficult. It has also been a trying time for Nigerians and particularly for those in the informal sector who make their living from daily earnings. For government also, it has been a particularly trying time. As a result of the poor fortunes of the oil sector, our revenues and foreign exchange earnings have fallen drastically. Our revenues have fallen by almost 60%. Yet we've had to sustain expenditures, especially on salaries and capital projects. We acted to mitigate the effect of the economic slowdown by adopting an economic sustainability plan. But we've also had to take some difficult decisions to stop unsustainable practices that were weighing down the economy. The 2.3 trillion economic sustainability plan consists of fiscal, monetary and sectoral measures to enhance local production, support businesses, retain and create jobs, and provide sector to Nigerians, especially the most vulnerable. In addition to improving the health sector, the plan lays emphasis on labour-intensive interventions in agriculture, in light manufacturing, in housing and facilities management. It also complements ongoing major infrastructural projects in power, road and rail, by prioritising the building of rural roads, information and telecommunications technologies, as well as providing solar power to homes which were not either too connected to the national grid. Alongside interventions in these critical areas, including agriculture and food security, affordable housing, technology, health, and providing jobs for youth and women post-COVID. The plan will also provide different avenues where government will support micro, small and medium enterprises to enable them to respond to the economic challenges of COVID-19. This includes safeguarding about 300,000 jobs in 100,000 MSMEs by guaranteeing off-take of their priority products and a survival fund to support vulnerable SMEs in designated vulnerable sectors in meeting their payroll obligations and safeguarding jobs from the shock of COVID-19. Under the ESP, the MSMEs component, both the survival fund or the payroll support and the guaranteed off-take scheme are to impact about 1.7 million individuals within a three to five month timeline. Also, 45% of total business beneficiaries will be female owned businesses and 5% of total business beneficiaries will be dedicated to special needs business owners. In addition, under the survival fund, the payroll support scheme, 250,000 new business names are to be registered at a discounted rate of 6,000 Naira by the CAC. But this will be free for MSMEs while 330,000 transport workers and artisans will get a one-time grant. Following an MOU to be signed by BOI and the federal government, the total beneficiaries for the survival fund scheme are about 33,000 beneficiaries per state. Every state will have 33,000 beneficiaries of the survival fund scheme with a minimum payroll support of 30,000 Naira and a maximum of 50,000 Naira. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe downturn and the funds available to finance our budget and has severely hampered our capacity. One of the steps we took at the beginning of the crisis in March when all prices collapsed at the height of the global lockdown was the deregulation of the price of premium motor spirit such that the benefit of lower prices at the time was passed on to consumers. This was welcomed by all and sundry. The effect of the deregulation is that pump prices or petrol will change with changes in global oil prices. This means quite regrettably that as all prices go higher, we could see some increases in pump price. This is what has happened now. When global prices rose, it meant that the price of petrol locally would also go up. There are several negative consequences if government should even attempt to go back to the business of fixing or subsidizing petroleum prices or PMS prices. First of all, it will mean a return to the costly subsidy regime. Today, as we've heard, we have 60% less revenues. We simply cannot afford the cost. The second danger is the potential return of fuel queues which has thankfully become a thing of the past. Nigerians no longer have to endure long queues just to buy petrol, often at highly inflated prices. Also as I hinted earlier, there is no provision for fuel subsidy in the revised 2020 budget simply because we are not able to afford such a cost. If reasonable provisions must be made for health, education and other social services, we simply cannot sustain petroleum subsidies. Nevertheless, I want to assure our compatriots that Nigeria is extremely mindful that the government is extremely mindful of the pains that higher prices may mean at this time and would not take the sacrifices that all Nigerians have had to make for granted. We will continue to seek ways and means of cushioning the pains, especially for the most vulnerable in our midst. We will also remain alert to our responsibility to ensure that marketers do not exploit citizens by raising pump price arbitrarily. This is the role that government must play through the PPRA. This explains why the PPRA made the announcement a few days ago, setting the range of price that must not be exceeded by marketers. The advantage we now have now is that anyone can bring in their petroleum products and compete with marketers. That way, the price of petrol will keep coming down. Recent service-based tariff adjustment by the discourse has also been a source of concern for many of us. Let me say frankly that, like many Nigerians, I have been very unhappy about the quality of service given by the discourse. But there are many constraints, including poor transmission and distribution capacity. I have already signed off on the first phase of the Siemens project to address many of these issues. Because of the problems with the privatisation exercise, government had had to keep supporting the largely privatised electricity industry. So far, to keep the industry going, we have spent close to 1.7 trillion Naira, especially by way of supplementing tariff shortfalls. We simply do not have the resources at this point to continue in this way, and it will be grossly responsible to borrow, to subsidise, generation and distribution, which are both privatised. But we also have a duty to ensure that the large majority of our people who cannot afford to pay cost-effective tariffs are protected from increases. NERC, the industrial regulator, therefore approved that tariff adjustments had to be made, but only on the basis of guaranteed improvement in service. Under this new arrangement, only customers who are guaranteed a minimum of 12 hours of power and above can have their tariffs adjusted. Those who get less than 12 hours supply or the band D and E and F customers must be maintained on tariff lifeline, on lifeline tariffs, meaning that they will experience no increase in their tariffs. This is the largest segment of our population. Government has also taken notice of the complaints about arbitrary estimated billing. Accordingly, a mass metering programme has been undertaken to provide meters for over 5 million Nigerians, largely driven by preferred procurement from local manufacturers and creating thousands of jobs in the process. NERC has also committed to strictly enforcing the capping regulation, which will ensure that unmetered customers are not charged beyond the metered customers in their neighbourhood. In other words, we will not permit estimated billing anymore. In addressing the power problems, we must not forget that most Nigerians are not even connected to electricity at all. So as part of the economic sustainability plan, we are providing solar home systems to 5 million Nigerian households in the next 12 months. We have already begun the process of providing financing support through the CBN for manufacturers and retailers of off-grid solar home systems and mini-grids who are to provide the systems. The 5 million systems under the ESP solar power strategy will produce 250,000 jobs and impact up to 25 million beneficiaries through the installation. This means that more Nigerians will have access to electricity via a reliable and sustainable solar home system. The support to solar home systems manufacturers and bulk procurement of local meters will create over 300,000 local jobs while ensuring that we set Nigeria on a path of full electrification. The tariff review is not about the increase which will only affect the top electricity consumers but also about establishing a system which will definitely lead to improved service for all at a fair and reasonable price. There has been some concern expressed about the timing of these two necessary adjustments. It's important to stress that this is coincidental. The deregulation of PMS prices happened some time ago. It was announced on the 18th of March 2020 and the price moderation that took place at the beginning of this month was just part of the ongoing ongoing exercise that the PPRA conducts to set the limits that marketers cannot exceed. Similarly, the review of service-based electricity tariffs was scheduled to start at the beginning of July but was put on hold to enable further studies and proper arrangements to be made. This government is not insensitive to the current economic difficulties that people are going through and the very tough economic situation we face as a nation and we certainly will not inflict hardship on our people but we are convinced that if we stay focused on our plans, a brighter and more prosperous Nigeria will come soon. Ministers and senior officials must accordingly ensure the vigorous and prompt implementation of all our plans and programs which will give circle to Nigerians. In this regard, the Central Bank of Nigeria has created credit facilities of up to 100 billion for healthcare and manufacturing. For healthcare is 100 billion, for manufacturing 1 trillion from January 2020 to date, over 191 billion Naira has already been dispersed for 76 real sector projects under the 1 trillion real sector scheme while 34 healthcare projects have been funded to the tune of 37.159 billion Naira under the healthcare sector intervention facility. The facilities are meant to address some of the infrastructural gaps in the healthcare and manufacturing sector as a fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and to facilitate the attainment of the five-year strategic plan. Distinguished participants, to address our current economic challenges and consolidate our achievements over the past year, this retreat has been designed to review the performance of each minister in delivering the priority mandates including programs and projects assigned to them upon their appointment in 2019 to identify key implements to implementation and three to strategize on how to accelerate delivery of results given the current economic situation. The retreat would also provide the opportunity to effectively evaluate the activities of ministries over the last 12 months with regard to the delivery of our agenda and promised in Nigerians. Ministers are urged to work closely with permanent secretaries to ensure accelerated and effective delivery of policies programs and projects in the priority areas. I've also directed the secretary to the government of the Federation to intensify efforts at deepening the work of the delivery unit under his coordination towards ensuring effective delivery of government policies programs and projects in the coming months. It is also my expectation that progress and the performance of the implementation of nine priority areas will be reported on a regular basis. In closing, I encourage optimal participation and contribution by all participants while observing all the necessary safety protocols and compliance with COVID-19 guidelines. On this note, it is my pleasure to formally declare the retreat open. I look forward to a very fruitful session, to very fruitful sessions and stimulating exchange of views. Thank you very much. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.