The Federal Government seems to have come to a reluctant acceptance of the reality that Nigeria is slipping into an economic recession.
Quite a number of Nigerians have weighed in on the dire economic situation including Senator Ben Murray Bruce and now, Nigeria’s minister of Power works and housing, Babatunde Fashola.
The minister opined that the seeds of Nigeria’s economic recession were planted during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
While speaking on Saturday at a forum organised by the Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (NIAF) in London, Fashola had the following to say:
The Challenges
“Today, we face challenging economic times. The commodities boom is gone. We have suffered consecutive negative growth and are economically experiencing a recession.
The Reason
“The reason is simple. It is not what the Buhari administration has done, it is a result of the profligate fiscal policy between 2010 and 2015, when we not only under-budgeted (N4 trillion) in the face of deficient infrastructure, we also compounded it by providing 15 per cent for capital expenditure, which was under-funded and 85 per cent for recurrent, which we adequately funded.
“If infrastructure drives growth as we have experienced from the great depression to the Marshall plan, and lately fiscal stimulus in recent years, our current economic recession is the result of yesterday’s policies and choices especially during 2010- 2015.
“Sometime in March 2015, a little over a year ago, before the Buhari government, a snap survey of four construction companies which I constructed revealed that they had laid off 5,150 workers because government was not paying these construction companies for work done.
Findings
“Since my assumption of office, in the ministry of power, works and housing, meetings with contractors in power, works and housing reveal that contractors have been owed 2 to 3 years. These are the seeds of recession, planted and nurtured between 2013 and 2014. The Buhari government knows the cause, and has designed the proper solution: fiscal stimulus and capital spending.”
New results
“The response is that in the last few weeks since budget was passed, construction companies that had demobilised from their sites and laid off workers due to lack of payment since 2014, are re-mobilising to rail, road, power and other construction sites, and re-calling workers.
“These are the first signs of productivity; they signal a clear pathway out of recession, and although results take time to manifest, Nigeria has chosen an appropriate pathway out of economic difficulty.
Someone should remind this clueless government who can do nothing
but blame others for there failure that the US government had an economic recession when George Bush led them to war in Iraq
But Ubama came in and reformed the economy.
Tity Oke, I don’t think that you live in America. For your information, it took Obama almost five years to restructure the American economy, after Bush’s eight years in office. Compare that to Jonathan’s ineptitude and wanton corruption of the entire resources of the country in his six years in office. No nation can survive or can be rebuild in one year considering the level of corruption that took place under Jonathan’s government. You seemed not to understood what Fashola was saying, about how the entire Nigerian economy came to a standstil under Jonathan’s heavily corrupt government. What Buhari has accomplished in one year in office, is more than what Obama accomplished during his one year in office, go and do the research. In less than one year, Buhari has almost wiped out Boko Haram and according to Fashola, many companies are beginning to hire workers, many states are paying workers’ salaries, and all the laidoff construction workers (that galvanizes the economy) are now been recalled to work. How can Buhari revamp the economy in just one year, when Jonathan singlehandedly bankrupted the country in his epileptic six years in office? Please go back and read again, the reasons adduced by Fashola about the state of the Nigerian economy under Jonathan’s government.
How can you compare Nigeria with USA? Why should a sitting government keep blaming past governments? It is all down to sentiments and emotional trauma which created illusion of progress. The government focus of Buhari is not the same with that of Jonathan’s government focus. So therefore, they do not share blame but glory. Fashola, I think he has no ready understanding of what is happening. All what he said has been repeated for over 14 months now and he is yet to see the reality that it is the government of Buhari responsible for what ever that happen to Nigeria from May 29, 2015 to now. The simple logic to this is that the current government appointed new people and with fresh ideas to work with him and not people from executive organ of Jonathan administration so we should have different results and there is vivid result already (Recession). You can give what you do not have. I believe we are are smart enough to realize that this is true. Jonathan made his mistakes and Buhari is making his mistakes now he is acting the old way that we are used to that is ignoring the fact that he is at fault.
Please let stop this pushing blames they could do it because it is easy for them and they are lazy people. We are the ones suffering from their government policies that doesn’t favor our economy and we are watching them closely.
Nigeria must be great again.
Thanks for your generous response! I bet you they will continue the blame game till the end of their tenure. This myopic government wasn’t thinking of what to do with power they got there. May God save Nigeria.
@Tony: your assessments of the Jonathan administration is very wrong. How could you have been saying “single handedly” in governance for God’s sake? I think we should separate between hate statements, allegations and realities when making criticism. This corruption of a thing, are we not in this Nigeria when “Ghana must go” was the language in National Assembly during Obasanjo’s reign? Have we left Nigeria now that issues of Danbazau and COAS is being raised in the armsdeal scandal? What has this administration said or done about it? Could the COAS and Procurement Director truly be clean of all the deals?
This government campaigned against Jonathan that $ was 260 in BDC, how much is it today? Let we all just pray that God revives our economy, it is not about blames on Buhari or Jonathan.