The atmosphere was charged,
yesterday, as participants at the special Town Hall meeting organized by
Ministry of Information and Culture, in collaboration with the Alumni
Association of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, AANI, in
Abuja, confronted nine ministers, demanding for quick remedy to the current
economic hardship in the country
Some of the aggrieved participants
told the ministers that Nigerians were tired of the talkshops and that
government should do more to put food on their tables. Speaking at the meeting,
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, said 2017
Budget would be submitted to the National Assembly by October this year.
According to the minister, necessary consultations on preparing the 2017 budget
are ongoing. He revealed that government had already released N331.5 billion to
date, as part of capital allocation of the 2016 budget, to key ministries
covering sectors that will turn around the economy. He said the ministries that
received the capital released were power, works and housing, defence and
security, water resources, transportation, agriculture and Niger Delta. N100bn
ready for capital projects Presenting his scorecard at the meeting, Minister of
Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, told the audience that the present
administration had been able to reverse the negative trend of spending the
bigger chunk of its annual budget on recurrent expenditure to capital by
increasing the vote from 10-15 per cent to 30 per cent in the 2016 budget. He,
however, disclosed that the Federal Government was ready to release additional
N100, 00 billion for capital expenditure, in addition to the N331 billion
earlier released in June. Of the N331 billion, Fashola said his ministry
received N102 billion as at July 29, and had paid N70 billion to contractors,
project managers, consultant, who had not received money for about two and half
years. He said: “We are paying out, with the understanding that they will begin
to bring back all the workers they have laid off. That is the way to go, and
out of this recession. We are not doing anything usual, but working with
thinner resources to do more. On power He explained that the administration was
trying to complete transmission lines from Gurara, Kashim Mambila plants, and
some other NIPP projects across the country to boost power supply. The idea, he
said, was to evacuate power immediately after generation, saying progress is
being made on other transmission lines. Borrowing In her presentation, Minister
of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, said the current effort by Federal Government to
borrow some funds was justifiable, in the sense that the funds would be
channelled into infrastructure development. Adeosun, who bemoaned the present
economic hardship in the country, told the audience that she also inherited 1.2
million civil servants, with over N160 billion total wage bill per month. She
described the size of the public sector as a reflection of the failure of the
private sector in the country. “We can’t continue that way. That is why we have
a very conservative appetite for borrowing,” Adeosun said, adding that there
was no quick solution to the present economic challenges. She noted that there
was a fundamental problem but assured that government was moving in the right
direction. Adopts ranching On his part, Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said the Federal Government had adopted ranching
as the only remedy to the lingering farmers and herdsmen crisis in the country.
Ogbeh, who traced the problem to the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, of
Babangida’s administration of 1986, pointed out that “the situation in Nigeria
at present did not start today.” He said: “This recession started long time ago
in 1986, when the then federal government introduced structural adjustment
programme. Then we threw our doors open for all kinds of importation.” To
partner states in mining Also in his presentation at the meeting, Minister of
Solid Minerals, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, stated that there should be synergy among
the federal, state and local governments for mining to thrive in the country.
He said: “Solid mineral is the backbone of industrialization. About $3.3
billion of skilled labor in iron ore and steel is imported into the country.
This has to stop for the sector to move forward. ‘’We do not want people to
come into the sector and export mining products. If you are in it, you have to
set up processing plants to enable us create resources available in that area
and send out finished products like cement,’’ Fayemi said. Earlier, the Minister
of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had said the administration
was always willing to engage with Nigerians to explain its policies and
programmes, as well as seek the necessary input from them. He lamented that
some individuals and groups had made it their pastime to continually castigate
the present government over an economic situation which was not its own making.
-Vanguard
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