Nigeria’s minister of finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun has admitted that because of harsh economic situation, Nigerians are frustrated, which is why the Muhammadu Buhari government is prioritizing the sectors.
“Yes, the economy is challenged and people are extremely frustrated and we need to rebuild. Fundamentally, we need to prioritize. We have to rebuild this country and it has to be data driven.”
The minister, who spoke during the visit of the leadership of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to her office in Abuja, challenged the private sector to come up with policies that are implementable in view of the harsh economic situation.
She assured the Group that her ministry is ready to work with them even as she asked members of the Group to keep track of some of the recommendations to the Federal Government.
“I want to challenge you by asking you to keep track of how many of your polices are implemented and those not implemented. You also need to find out why those policies were not implemented. They may be great policies at wrong times, or they may be wrong policies. They may even be un-implementable policies.
“I’m giving you the commitment of the Federal Ministry of Finance to assist you. You are invited to the Federal Ministry of Finance and spend a day and sit with our people and see how government affairs are being run.”
The minister stressed the need to prioritize in the face of the revenue challenge in the country, adding: “we are already overhauling our tax policy. We want to have a realistic picture of tax.
“We need to realize that with the collapse of commodity prices we don’t have enough foreign exchange to buy as many imported goods as we like to, so when there is import substitution, we must embrace it.”
The minister justified the stoppage of the policy on Export Grant, which according to her, has been seriously abused.
Responding to the explanation sought by NESG on the current status of Export Grant, the minister said that although her predecessor halted the implementation of the policy, she believed the decision was in order, going by harvests of startling revelations on the abuse of export grant.
“On paper, why will you cancel Export Grant? The federal government is set up to encourage export business. However, in a situation, where we do not have control, we open up doors for the kind of abuse, which are only imaginable. We have people exporting stones, describing them as high valued goods, collecting an import credit and using that to import fish.
“We do need to look for how to support export, but we have to be very realistic in the recommendations we are coming up with.” [myad]
