NIGERIA SOON WILL MOVE OUT OF BANKRUPTCY SOONER-kemi adeousn

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeousn, has assured
Nigerians that the current economic recession the nation
was experiencing will not be prolonged.
Adeousn gave this assurance on Friday in Abuja while
addressing a news conference.
She said that there was a strategic plan by the
ministry to see that the recession will soon become a thing of the past and
also ensure that the nation economy comes back to a perfect state.
She said, “We have a strategic plan that will take us out
of the recession we have found ourselves in; we want to
make sure the recession is as short as possible because
we do not want a prolonged recession.
“From what we are looking at we do not think that it will
be a prolonged recession; we think that some of the
initiatives that we are working on will now begin to bear
fruits.
“We are on course and are confident that the plan we
have put together will work and put the economy back
on state.
“It is a long term plan that would rebuild the economy so that we don't push into this boom and burst
circles that are driven by the oil price.
“The economy has to be more resilient than that so that
we do not find ourselves back where we are.’’
In her speech, She said that measures put in place by the Federal Govt showed
was that the end of the recession had begun and Nigeria
would come out stronger.
Listing some of the measures the agency had taken to address the situation, she said that since the
budget was released in May, over N420 billion had been
released and cash backed for capital projects.
She said that the largest sector that the money was
spent on was Power, Works and Housing.
She also said that a lot had been done in the defence
sector to rebuild the capability and ability of the army, especially on
efforts in the North East.
She also said, “Agriculture has intakes significant raising
because of the time sensitivity of agriculture and
because of the fact that food prices were rising, we
needed to move in so that we could get food prices
down.
“There is activity resuming on roads, power projects and
health projects and we have released money to water
resources and solid minerals.’’
Adeosun also said that there was a cash plan to release
another N350 billion which would go into the various
MDAs.
“The focus is going to be similar, however, there would
also be funding of about N60 billion for the Special
Intervention Programme and that is very important in
putting money into people’s pockets.
“The school feeding programme and the N-Power
teachers corps we will cash back today as part of the
N350 billion additional release which would take our
total capital spending to about N700 billion.”
She also said that N50 billion was set monthly as
budget support plan for some state governments from
the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee to support
them with additional money to enable them to pay
salaries.
She said that the loan had been on for three months for
the interested states because some states which were
buoyant decided not to participate.
On assets recovery, Adeosun said that the agency is in the process of collating with the non-cash assets
e.g farmlands, vehicles and houses and that a fixed
asset register would soon be opened to determine their
value.
She said that the jewelries were from different locations
and were being brought together to determine the
market value and that the next line of action would be
decided by the committee.
Adeosun explained that the present recruitment by the
police and some other government agencies were made
possible by the reduction of invisible workers.
She added that the savings that were made from the
exercise would enable funding for the new recruitment.
“Sometime in January, personnel cost was N165 billion
along with pension cost, but so far so good; we have
reduced, through the removal of about 40,000 ghost
workers, the personnel cost by around N10 billion per
month.
“Now we have saved about N100 billion this year.’’
She said that though the times were tough, there was
hope for Nigerians, adding that issues around
infrastructure were the biggest problems of Nigeria
which resulted in high cost of living.
“The biggest problem we have is not wages but the cost
of living which is too high so it is not how much money
you have but it is what it costs you to live.
“The problem we have is that many of the things that
people are spending money on are the things
government should be doing like roads, power and so
on.
“So we have to address these things because that is
what will really make impact for the average working
Nigerian and so when you address the infrastructure you
address the cost of living and that is what this
government is working on.’’