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  • Nigerian economy, not in confusion – Finance Minister

    Nigerian economy, not in confusion – Finance Minister

    The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, on Wednesday declared that the Nigerian economy is not in confusion.

    Noting that the Nigeria economy has been heading to recession in the past six years, she however said that the economy is presently in the right hands.

    She spoke with State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Adeosun was accompanied to the briefing by the Ministers of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh; Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi; Information, Lai Mohammed and Education, Adamu Adamu.

    Responding to questions on the new economic statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), she said: “It’s the worst possible time for us. Are we confused? Absolutely not. How are we going to get ourselves out of this recession. One, we must make sure that we diversify our economy. There are too many of us to keep on relying on oil.

    “We can see what happened at the output data of the oil and gas sector. What’s happening in the Niger delta has dragged down the GDP of the entire economy. We’re too dependent on oil whereas 87 percent of our GDP is oil. So let us drive those other areas

    “We have to invest in capital projects. No, we are not confused, the time is confusing but we are not confused. We are extremely focused. We know that if we can just bare and get through this difficult period, Nigeria is going to be better for it.

    “If we rely on oil and the price of oil remains low and the quantity of oil remains low, we can’t grow. We have to grow our non-oil economy. I think we that we have a long way to go.

    “We’re not confused and we’re not deceiving ourselves that everything is rosy. It’s not. It’s a difficult time for Nigeria but I think Nigeria is in the right hands and if we can stick with our strategy. We still have some adjustments to make. I think we need to make some adjustments in monetary policy. It’s quite clear we do and we will do that. We’re working on that. We need to try and find a way to support the manufacturing sector better and we will do that.” She added

    She pointed out that the high inflation rate in the country is cost-pushed.

    “And when you have cost-push inflation, it is structural inflation. It is not going to respond to monetary policy tools such as increasing the rate of interest. We have to address the structural causes of the inflation,” she said

    But, she however said that the high rate of inflation has slowed down, which is a good sign for the economy.
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    ‎According to her, the FEC on Wednesday approved external three-year rolling borrowing plan.

    The plan, she said, will be transmitted to the National Assembly for the approval.

    She said: “Recall when we came in we said our external borrowings strategy will be focused on confessional debts, low cost loans particularly from the multi-lateral agencies‎.”

    The conditions of the borrowing, she said, included concessional loans average interest rates‎ 1.25 per cent, four to seven year moratorium, and 20 years to pay.

    According to her, the loans will come from agencies like the World Bank, African Development Bank, China Exim Bank, and other development agencies like Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

    She added: “The sectors in particular that‎ these concessional loans will go to are the strategic sectors of the economy that will help to revive the economy. ‎There is Power. Significant amount of money are located to power projects particularly transmission. This is long term money that will enable us solve some of the problems in that sector.

    “There are projects around polio. There are some money that have been allocated to us to help us do some massive immunization, in order to control this recent outbreak. This is being provided by the World Bank.

    “There is provision for solid minerals and of course I’m very excited about the discovery of nickel. World Bank is supporting the project by the Ministry of Mines and Steel with $150 million to enable them strengthen their capacity in that area.

    “The largest beneficiary of our borrowing is agriculture because its equally strategic and we have programmes by the minister some of which he inherited and is going to restructure and reform and some are new to the ministry.

    “The balance will come from the Eurobond we had indicated.” She said.

    According to her, the FEC sent a strong signal on the need to reach out to the National Assembly to get the borrowing plan approved as soon as possible.

    “Because a lot of this money is for developmental projects. We need this money to be made available for us. Remember these are foreign exchange coming to our country that will help our economy.” She added

    Fayemi disclosed that the Council approved a new roadmap for mining to boost the growth and development of the industry.‎‎

    He said: “What the roadmap seeks to do is to grow the contribution of mining to the GDP on the back of the President’s vision to diversify the economy.  It is to build on the old roadmap of 2012.

    “What distinguishes this roadmap is its determination to build a regulatory agency – an independent regulatory agency in the mining sector. Stakeholders have been insisting that the ministry should not also be the regulator of the industry. ‎

    “We will now have Mining cadastral zonal offices which issue the licenses together with the mining inspecting directorate, mining environment compliance unit as well as the nautical mining units. These are directorate within the ministry but will form part of the independent regulatory agency.

    “The second point that is very critical is the ‎partnership with states. One of the challenges in mining is the tension between the federal government and the states. ‎The Federal Government owns the minerals in the sole but the states government owns the land. ‎

    He stressed that there won’t be any headway without a robust partnership between the two critical components of mining, adding that mining has not been thriving because of the tension between the Federal Government and states.‎‎

    “In this regard, minning cadastrail and zonal offices will also be created in the states to work on this.” He added

    He said that the roadmap is to also change the name of the Ministry from Ministry of Solid Minerals Development ‎to Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in line with glob‎al standard.

    The roadmap, he said, will also
    make it easier for foreign direct investment to come into the country by improving on Nigeria’s geo-sciences data.

    “Mining is about science and if you don’t search you won’t find. Council recognizes that and agreed that a lot of money be put into exploration.

    “The roadmap also focuses on financing the industry, the financial institutions don’t know much about mining and have not invested a lot in it‎.

    “One of the ways the President wants to re-energise the sector is to ensure it gives access to the Natural Resource Fund of the Federation Account which is really meant for agriculture, mining and water resources. But mining has never benefited from the fund. This is similar to ecological fund 1.8 per cent of federation.

    “Another focus is to ensure that value‎ addition is gradually being invested to and reduce the manner in which raw minerals are exported from Nigeria. It is to emphasize beneficiation and processing, so that what we produce is also improved upon before we embark on exportation.

    “We also want to ensure it is utilize here, we have granite, Marbel, bitumen yet we import the bulk of those products into Nigeria because processing does not take place here
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    Above all, it focuses ‎to increase the contribution of mining to the GDP of the country. Mining has gradually declined from 4.5 per cent of the GDP at independence to 0.33 per cent of the GDP as at today.

    “Given the new focus we can begin to scale that up again. Within the next decade, it’s readily expected that it will begin to climb up to about five per cent of the nation’s GDP.‎

    ‎”The roadmap gives a sense to how the country is paying attention to mining development which is more of an employment generator and wealth creator unlike oil, which recruits fewer people.

    “We want to upscale it and improve the skills of the people, making access to finance available and making technology available to them,” he stated
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  • FG to release N60bn for capital projects

    FG to release N60bn for capital projects

    Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeousn, said Federal Government was set to release N60 billion for capital projects to stimulate the economy.

    Adeosun made this known on Friday in Abuja at an interactive session with newsmen, and said that the disbursement would raise funds already released by the government to N400 billion since May.

    She said that contractors had been paid to return to work, adding that very soon Nigerians would begin to see the impact of the administration’s efforts and policies.

    “So far we have spent N400 billion on capital, that is between May when the budget was signed and now; we are going for another capital allocation meeting where we are going to allocate another N60 billion.

    “So, we are pumping money into the economy at a very rapid rate, but it would take a little time for the effect to be felt,’’ she said.

    Adeosun disclosed that the administration was encouraged by some results it was getting.

    According to her, states known for agriculture are going back to it and generating revenue from it.

    She expressed optimism of bumper harvest of crops, and said that storage facilities like silos, were being put in place to avoid loss of any harvest.

    The minister also said that for Nigeria to survive present economic situation, corruption had to be fought holistically and that infrastructure had to be built to create employment.

    “Fighting corruption is fundamental and if we stick with that and all the money stolen or diverted is directed at projects that could grow the economy, we would recover,’’ she said.

    She said that a tax committee had been inaugurated to overhaul the entire tax system in the country.

    She, however, explained that the intention to tax luxury items was not a policy because there was no constitutional provision to tax the items.

    Adeosun assured that the committee would seek ways to ensure that the right laws were put in place in that regard.

    She said that the Joint Tax Board (JTB) was working to harmonise taxes that were overlapping among federal, states and local governments.

    “It is part of the ease of doing business initiative because these are some of the things that cause businesses to close down.

    “It puts one off and even in the Federal Government, we are working on various revenues and looking at who is the best agent to collect revenue.’’
    The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, said that the media were very important tools to drive democracy and that partnership with them had made governance easier.

    He also said that the media played a significant role in the Nigerian economy by interpreting government policies to the people and educating the public.

    Isa-Dutse, however, advised the media to be positive in its reportage of the nation’s economy.

  • Nigerian economy: Recession trends on Google

    Nigerian economy: Recession trends on Google

    The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele and Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun appeared to take different positions on the state of Nigeria’s economy. Are we in a recession yet or not? is the question Nigerians have been asking and they have taken their search for answers to Google.

     

    …Anambra State leads search in Nigeria

     Perhaps there’s been some  uncertainty about whether Nigeria’s economy  is fully in a recession or just “technically” in recession, thanks to recent comments on the issue by the CBN chief and Mrs Adeosun.

    Local interest in the term peaked in the past three months, with questions about the recession in Nigeria  trending on Google in July.

    For those who may still be  still in the dark about the state of the economy , it may be a good idea to pluck a leaf from the tree of knowledge growing in Anambra State. Anambra currently tops the list of states in Nigeria searching for “recession” and other related terms.

    Perhaps the curiosity of the  gentlemen traders at Iweka road, Onitsha, who just needed to know why all  this fuss about a recession, sent the state to the head of the Search list, trumping cosmopolitan Abuja and Lagos, as seen below.

    1. Anambra State.
    2. Federal Capital Territory.
    3. Rivers State.
    4. Lagos State.

    So why are residents of other States not searching for terms related to the recession? Unfortunately, Google has no answers to that question, but globally, Nigeria is one of the top three countries with the most searches for the term. In other words, we are not alone on this one -even good old stable Canada is worried.

    1. United Arab Emirates
    2. Singapore
    3. Nigeria
    4. Canada
    5. Ireland
    6. South Africa
    7. U.S.A

    Below is a list of questions people are asking in Nigeria about the recession. You may want to Google numbers 6 and 9 while you are at it.

    1. Economic recession in Nigeria?
    2. what is recession / recession definition
    3. what is economic recession
    4. difference between recession and depression
    5. recession proof businesses
    6. how to survive in economic recession
    7. how to add value during a recession
    8. when is an economy in recession
    9. how to make money in a recession
    10. causes of recession

    According to analysts, Nigeria’s recession was triggered by a dip in government revenues and spending in the wake of the  fall in global crude oil prices. It’s likely to be a bumpy ride ahead for the country, so it’s important to live by the first rule for surviving a recession- Start saving money now.

  • Nigeria is in Recession, says Adeosun

    Nigeria is in Recession, says Adeosun

    *FG releases N247.9 billion for capital projects

    Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, on Thursday admitted that the country is in recession.

    Adeosun who made the declaration while briefing Senators in plenary on measures adopted to bail out the economy from the woods also said that the Federal Government has released N247.9 billion in the last two months for capital expenditure.

    She said that another N60 billion would also be released for capital vote in the next few weeks.

    She added that the sum of N74 billion was released to the Works Ministry.

    All the releases, she said, had been fully cash backed.

    The Minister however told the Senators that the recession would be a very short one because government had put measures reverse the trend.

    She said that Nigerians should not dwell on the recession but rather on where the country is going through the measures being taken to save the economy.

    Adeosun said: “‎Is Nigeria in recession? Technically, if you go into two quarters of negative growth, technically, we are in recession. But I don’t think we should dwell on definitions. I think we should really dwell on where we are going. I think if we are in recession, what I will like to say is we are going to come out of it and it would be a very short one because the policies that we have would ensure that we don’t go below where we need to go and I think with what we are doing, we would begin to turn the corner I believe by Quarter three”‎

    “‎We are not the only country in recession, many countries are doing far worse than us. But for Nigeria, what Nigerians want to know is ‘how’s that going to affect me’ and I want to assure everybody that what we are doing is going to work and it’s going to turn this economy around.”

    The minister further insisted that despite the economic downturn, Nigeria’s economy remained the biggest in Africa and would continue to be so.

    On the N247.9billion released, she noted that N107 billion was for projects in the Works and Housing sector, while the agriculture sector received N29.1 billion.

    She asked the lawmakers to continue to believe in the ability of the country to recover from the economic problems.

    She said that Nigerians should ‎not panic over opinions expressed by some international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in respect of the state of country’s economy.

    She declared, “‎I ‎am not too worried about the IMF projection, I will tell you why because IMF job and function is global economic surveillance. They equally issued a negative report on Britain as a result of Brexit.

    “I don’t think we should panic every time IMF speaks. I think we need to be confident around what we are doing and where we are going. I remained extremely confident as I said around Nigeria, IMF has given their projections which is we may continue into negative territory and I am not sure what we have seen suggests that. ‎”

    On what was inherited from the immediate past administration, Adeosun said: “‎I inherited very little by way of reserves.

    “I inherited significant debt, contractor debt. Cash calls of $5 billion dollars outstanding to the oil companies.

    “I mentioned the cash calls of $5 billion dollars outstanding to the oil companies. I equally mentioned the fact that many of the contractors even though we have paid them N107 billion find it very difficult to work because they are owed and some of them have not being paid since 2012.

    “Their claims are over N390 billion. So, I didn’t inherit reserves that are positive, I inherited reserves that tend to be more negative than positive because the economy is actually in very good hands and we are doing absolutely our best to get through this difficult period and I explained how we are doing that, we have being extremely disciplined around our spending.

    “We are investing in essential infrastructure I gave the metric we have released N74 billion to Works in two months compared to N19 billion for the whole of last year. We are doing everything possible to avert and to manage the situation which we didn’t create unfortunately but which we inherited and we as a nation we must all get out of.”‎

    On the loans the government has taken to fund the budget, she said that the loans have been more of local loans.

    She said, “We have been borrowing largely from the domestic market because we needed to get the exchange rate sorted out to enable us borrow from the international market.

    “The international borrowings will begin to come in quarter three; that is always our projections. We would take initial money from Nigeria as we sorted things out and we go on the road to borrow internationally.”‎

    Adeosun said: “The projected rate of implementation of the budget I found that difficult question to answer simply because there are quite a few moving part in terms of our revenue and many of our revenues will come in the third quarter.

    On areas of priority she said, “I think we have being fairly consistent that we needed to invest in infrastructure and in our releases we have tried to priotise those areas and also to work with seasonality.

    “For example Works Ministry needs to have their money during the dry season because during the rainy season works stops and we are trying to time the releases to ensure maximum impact.

    On the 2017 budget, “I believe the minister of budget and planning has started working on putting that documents together and I am very sure in good time for us to go back to the calendar that we lie which is the December calendar.

    “The releases are fully cash backed. We have stopped the practice of releasing or approving releases that are not cash backing. We have changed that process we now start from the position how much cash do we have and then we release appropriately.”

    On exchange rate she said, “We predicated the budget on N197 and the rate is now N280 per dollar.

    On social intervention she said, “The question about the interest of Nigerians, I think it is a very good one. Job creation and reserves. One of the things that I mentioned that we have done is release this money for the first time for the social intervention programmes.

    “We have released N15 billion of capital and we put in N5 billion this month for recurrent and so that recurrent will continue to increase as they roll out the implementation of things like the duty calls, the agriculture extension workers and the other job creation initiatives.

    “Also beyond that, the police, one of the upside from the cleaning we have done on the pay roll was that the police were able to recruit 10,000 new officers but there is no impact on their salaries because we have cleaned up those who have or who shouldn’t have being there and so they can now create 10,000 new jobs. So, there is quite a bit of job creation activity going on as a result of some of the interventions we have done.”

    On what government inherited she said, “I think at a time like this blaming who was responsible doesn’t actually take us anywhere but I will tell you what I inherited. I inherited very little by way of reserves.

    “I inherited significant debt, contractor debt. Cash calls of $5 billion dollars outstanding to the oil companies. I mentioned the cash calls of $5 billion dollars outstanding to the oil companies.

    “I equally mentioned the fact that many of the contractors even though we have paid them N107 billion find it very difficult to work because they are owed and some of them have not being paid since 2012.  Their claims are over N390 billion. So, I didn’t inherit reserves that are positive, I inherited reserves that tend to be more negative than positive because the economy is actually in very good hands and we are doing absolutely our best to get through this difficult period and I explained how we are doing that.

    “WE have being extremely disciplined around our spending, we are investing in essential infrastructure I gave the metric we have released N74 billion to Works in two months compared to N19 billion for the whole of last year. We are doing everything possible to avert and to manage the situation which we didn’t create unfortunately but which we inherited and we as a nation we must all get out of.

    “We have being borrowing largely from the domestic market because we needed to get the exchange rate sorted out to enable us borrow from the international market.

    The international borrowings will begin to come in Q3 that is always our projections we would take initial money from Nigeria as we sorted things out and we go on the road to borrow internationally.”

    On IMF prediction she said, “I am not too worried about the IMF projection. I will tell you why because IMF job, one of their functions is global economic surveillance. They equally issued a negative report on Britain as a result of Brexit.

    “I don’t think we should panic every time IMF speaks. I think we need to be confident around what we are doing and where we are going. I remained extremely confident as I said around Nigeria, IMF has given their projections which is we may continue into negative territory and I am not sure what we have seen suggests that.

    “Agriculture output seems to be going up. If you even look inflation which is very high, the month on that reduced and that tells you that things are moving in the right direction. If you look at what is happening in the petroleum sector before subsidy we are subsidising around 45 million dollars litres of fuel a day. Now without subsidy usage has dropped to 26 million litres so what does that tells you all the smuggling that was going out of the country based on the subsidy that we are providing have stopped those are real savings to the economy which we are now redirecting into the essentially infrastructure that will get this economy going.”

  • Nigeria economy still strong, says CBN boss

    Nigeria economy still strong, says CBN boss

    …Adeosun to brief Senate

    Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday declared that the strategic health of the country’s financial system is still strong.

    Emefiele also painted a gloomy picture of the sharp decline in the price of oil and commodity prices to the country’s economy.

    The CBN boss spoke at a closed session with Senators in line with Section 8 of the CBN Act, 2007, which required that the Governor of the Bank provide, to the National Assembly, periodic updates on the activities of the Bank as well as the performance of the economy.

    After the over one hour closed session, Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki noted that the Senate in a closed door session with the CBN Governor deliberated on the new foreign exchange management policy and the determination of foreign exchange market by demand and supply mechanism.

    Saraki added that the session also deliberated on the need to continue to grow the economy with focus on diversification of the economy.

    A statement by the leadership of the Senate said that the CBN Governor presented a comprehensive and lucid account of the performance of the Nigerian economy in the last one year.

    It said that Emefiele’s presentation began with current global economic conditions, which has been characterized by external shocks including the sharp decline in commodity prices, the geopolitical tensions along important global trading routes, and tightening of monetary policy in the United States of America.

    It said that the CBN boss drew linkages of these occurrences with the Nigerian economy, especially with respect to the over 70 percent decline in oil prices from about S116 per barrel in June 2014 to about $30 per barrel earlier in the year.

    It said, “The Governor’s presentation also gave us an insight into the Bank’s decisions in the Foreign Exchange Market, and the rationale underlying the recent re-introduction of a Flexible Exchange Rate Mechanism in Nigeria.

    “He also delved into the health of the financial system and discussed the Bank’s detailed examinations of financial institutions as well as its zero tolerance for insider dealings by Board and Management of deposit money banks.

    “In sum, the Governor declared that the Strategic health of Nigeria’s financial system is still strong at this time.”

    It said that after the presentation, many Senators asked a host of pertinent questions and raised issues concerning the banking system, the slippage in economic growth for the first quarter of 2016, the gradual

    rise in inflation, fall in foreign exchange reserves, and policy coordination between the fiscal and monetary authorities.

    It said that following an exhaustive response by both the Governor and his team, the Senate acknowledged that “these are indeed difficult times all over the world and not just in Nigeria.”

    “The Senate also acknowledged the pains that many people may be facing at this time, especially in light of increases in price of electricity and fuels.

    “But having carefully considered the policies of the CBN, the Senate would like to commend and support these policies because they are mostly geared towards increasing local production, creating jobs here in Nigeria, safeguarding our commonwealth, and expanding economic opportunities and growth in Nigeria,” the statement said.

    The Senate insisted that it is critical that all Nigerians put hands together to seek long term solutions to the country’s underlying problem of non diversification of foreign exchange earning and revenues, rather than pointing fingers or apportioning blames.

    The Senators noted that they “believe strongly in the resilience of the Nigerian economy and the ingenuity of the Nigerian people and as such, we are confident that we will all pull through these difficulties and come out as a much better, equitable, and prosperous nation.”

    A source at the closed door meeting also said that “at a time, the CBN governor told us that we should also work together to pull the economy out of trouble.”

    He noted that “many of us believe that the economy is actually in trouble and something has to be done to rescue it in the interest of the country.”

    Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun will also face the Senate on Wednesday on the same subject matter.

     

  • Senate summons Adeosun, Emefiele over dwindling economy

    Senate summons Adeosun, Emefiele over dwindling economy

    The Senate Wednesday resolved to invite the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to brief it on the state of the country’s economy.

    The invitation followed the adoption of a motion on “urgent need to address present economic state of the nation”

    Senator Bassey Albert Akpan (Akwa Ibom North East) who sponsored the motion said that the motion is informed by the National Bureau of Statistics release last week bordering on the nation’s economic scorecard for the first quarter of the year 2016 for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), inflation and unemployment.

    He observed that the report depicted that the country’s economy plunged into recession with a decline of 0.3 per cent year-on-year in real term which is a drastic drop from 2.11 per cent in quarter four 2015 IN GDP.

    He also observed that from the report, unemployment rate rose to 21.1 per cent in quarter one 2016 from 10.4 per cent in Q4 2015.

    According to him, unemployment also increased to 19.1 per cent from 18.7 per cent in the same period while the rate inflation rose from 9.6 per cent in January 2016 to 13.8 per cent in April 2016 with attendant increase in prices of basic food commodities and services in the country.

    Senator Akpan said that he is worried that the declining GDP and unemployment besides the current high inflation rate clearly shows that the economic policies of the country “are not achieving desired impact and requires an urgent review to avoid further plunge in our economy.”

    The lawmaker said that he is further worried that the current economic contractions is the first major drastic slump since June, 2004, which according to the CBN is a 12-year-low when the World Bank’s position is a 21-year-low.

    He recalled that the CBN, had in March, 2016 deployed a contracting monetary policy increasing bench mark interest rate from 11% and cash reserve ratio from 20% to 22.5%.

    “The question is why contracting monetary policy instead of expansionary monetary policy of boosting economic activities at such a critical time as this,” he asked.

    Senator Akpan noted that he is deeply concerned that the continued complacency of the current state of the economy if allowed unchecked will set the tone for a full blown economic recession by the end of June 2016 as already confirmed by the CBN in its Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday.

    The Akwa Ibom lawmaker said that he is disturbed that the current economic situation in the country coupled with lack of required foreign exchange to boost import of raw materials for domestic industries will worsen the unemployment and poverty situation in the country.

    He noted that considering the decline in oil production in the Niger Delta by 800,000 b/d vis a vis the benchmark production for 2016 budget of 2.2mb/d, owing to the vandalisation of oil pipe lines, in addition to the inability of non oil revenue collecting agencies to meet to meet revenue targets owing to the economic crunch.

    Senator Akpan concluded that he is convinced that with the current economic slump, “meeting the key budgetary revenue projection of the 2016 budget is practically impossible and the need to have a rethink to avoid deepening budget deficit or poor budget implementation.”

    He added that “whether we like it or not, no matter what we call it, the Naira was devalued Tuesday.”

    The single prayer that the Senate should invite the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele to brief the Senate on the monetary/fiscal policies adopted to salvage the economic situation was unanimously adopted.

    Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who briefly presided over the plenary, ruled out any debate.

    Saraki said that since Adeosun and Emefiele would appear before the Senate in plenary, there was no need to pre-empt them.

    Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South) who seconded the motion said that it is obvious that the country has no economic blue print to drive its economy.

  • FG orders audit of military payroll

    FG orders audit of military payroll

    Following revelations in the course of the trial of the former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, at the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the sum of N558.2 million was allegedly diverted monthly from the Nigeria Air Force account into private pockets, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has directed an investigation into the payrolls of the Air Force, the Navy and the Army by the Continuous Audit Team of the Federal Government.

    A statement from the ministry signed by Salisu Na’Inna Dambatta, Director (Information) of the ministry said “the Continuous Audit team has been charged with the responsibility of scrutinizing the payrolls of the three services, which have not yet been put on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information [1] System (IPPIS), to ensure that all possible loopholes that could lead to leakages were blocked.”

    According to him, the exercise “will be conducted, pending the biometric capturing and migrating the payroll of the three services to the IPPIS, in line with the policy of the Federal Government to clean up the payroll of all public sector employees.”

    The Minister of Finance said that the measure has become necessary as part of the change mantra of the Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, which include the restoration of the culture of transparency, accountability and control in the management of public funds.

    The Continuous Audit Process was one of the initiatives of the Minister approved by President Muhammadu Buhari as part of the on-going reforms in the public finance management system of the federal government, which he emphasised in his 2016 Budget speech.

    Mrs. Kemi Adeosun said the Director of Special Projects in the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Mohammed Kyari Dikwa, will head the Continuous Audit Team and report their findings for appropriate action by the Federal Government.​

  • FG to redefine govt spending for maximum impact – Adeosun

    FG to redefine govt spending for maximum impact – Adeosun

    The Federal Government is set to redefine spending in order to get maximum impact.

    A statement from the ministry of finance said the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Tuesday made the disclosure in Ogun state that the current administration is determined to ensure that going forward; government spending in Nigeria will achieve maximum impact.

    The finance minister noted that government spending in previous years had been ineffective and not directed in the right areas; the Minister reiterated the focus of the government on investing in critical infrastructure to enable growth.

    She highlighted the fact that Nigeria is not an oil economy stressing that although oil accounts for 70 per cent of revenue, it constitutes only 13 per cent of our gross domestic product. “By fully harnessing the potential of our non-oil sectors, we can create a more diversified and resilient revenue base which would provide the necessary fiscal buffers to insulate the economy against the impact of external shocks in the future,” the Minister stated.

    Adeosun also spoke on the need for the Federal Government to play its role so that states can focus on their core functions. According to her, The Federal Government will level the playing field by removing rent-seeking opportunity to unleash entrepreneurial activity and job creation, adding “We must engage in economic patriotism to support local job growth.”

    The Minister assured that the government is fully aware of the current economic challenges facing individuals and businesses and is working very hard on resetting the economy on the path towards achieving sustainable growth. She added that better days are ahead with President Buhari’s resolve to check corruption and wastage.

     

  • Stimulation fund: Financial expert tasks FG on proper planning

    Stimulation fund: Financial expert tasks FG on proper planning

    A former President of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Mr Okechukwu Unegbu, on Monday urged the Federal Government to specify strategic areas that the proposed N350 billion stimulation fund would be injected into.

    Unegbu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos there must be proper planning before the injection of such funds in the economy, to avoid excess liquidity.

    He said that there must be proper clarity and planning where the funds would be channelled into, for economy growth and development.

    Unegbu said that government should work closely with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to streamline fiscal and monetary policies.

    He explained that there must not be any disconnection between the apex bank and government in policy management.

    Unegbu, however, expressed concern at the disparity between the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and the Federal Government in the management of the economy.

    He stated that the major reason for increasing interest rate to 12 per cent from 11 per cent was to reduce excess liquidity.

    According to him, government should work closely with the CBN to avoid a policy somersault.
    NAN reports that the Federal Government announced its readiness to inject a total of N350 billion into the economy in the next few months.

    Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance, said that part of the money would help to offset the debt owed to local contractors, who had laid-off their workers due to lack of funds.