Speaking in an interview with selected journalists in Abuja, Laolu Akande, the senior special assistant to the Vice President, revealed the present state of the economy, stating that President Muhammadu Buhari and his team have worked hard and planned not only to save cost. INFORMATION NIGERIA brings you 7 things we learned from the interview.
1. The attitude of this presidency is to consider the management of the economy as a government responsibility and it is not something that this government believes should be done by bringing in some of the private interests into the economic team to take a decision that they will be directly involved with.
2.They have started by having meetings on constant basis with Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), meetings with arms of the economic sector of the country, meetings with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and some other economic interests with companies, making presentations.
3.That there is a government team, which has been able to set out before the budget trying to figure out what the budget ought to focus on. After the budget was presented and eventually signed, there was also the publication of the strategic implementation plan which was produced in a reader friendly format.
4.And as much as they try not to say this, we know as a matter of fact that members of the past administration, most of them have come out to say they did not save for the rainy day. So we are dealing mostly with situations that have been caused even before this administration took over power.
5.The President and his team have worked hard and planned not only to save cost, not only to tighten public expenditure but to also diversify the economy like never before.
6.Also, the timing of the budget approval cause some delays. He said ‘For instance, when we came in at the end of May, there was no way the government could implement some of those social welfare schemes because it was not budgeted for.’
7.Therefore, had to wait for the budget process to kick in so that we can begin to put our ideas forward which was done and since the budget has been signed now, we are taking off.”
