whole lot of the people who have written or
spoken in recent times on the economic
issues prevalent in our nation today. We are,
however, stakeholders; after all, it is our
country. We live here, earn a living here; our
children attend schools here and what have
you. Even those of us who are not resident in
the country have family members who are,
and probably have some investment or the
other here. So, we are all stakeholders.
Since the first alarm was sounded on the
falling prices of crude oil, many of us have
been following the news ardently, silently
hoping for a reprieve of some sort. It has been
several weeks since the first news broke, and
though several actions and reactions have
taken place since then, the narrative of the
general populace has not changed; we are
still in the 'finger pointing' phase. Two points
arise from this phase which require that we
take a look at the facts before us critically
rather than allow ourselves be swept away in
the flood of what at first may appear as
'public opinion', but now plays as a well-
crafted plan to distract and derail the good
people of this dear nation from the things
which are true and right.
Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a technocrat,
not a politician. She was not appointed as
finance minister and Coordinating Minister of
the Economy because she was owed a
political favour, but because the presidency
deemed her the right fit for the job. Based on
her past service to the country, it is not out of
place for me to state that she is not one
associated with reckless spending. In fact, it
was during her first stint as finance minister
that the Excess Crude Account was set up.
Secondly, while she endorsed saving; other
parties, wielding political might, undermined
her efforts. In April 2013, she openly, and on
more than one occasion told us that the
Federal Government was compelled to share
over $ 16.4billion revenue accumulated in the
excess crude account to the states because
the governors argued that it was
unconstitutional and even illegal for the
Nigerian republic to have savings stashed
away for some imaginary rainy day. She was
also quoted saying that, "It was a fight to
even get $ 1billion paid into the SWF
(Sovereign Wealth Fund). We managed to
save $ 20billion the last time, but now the
governors are saying it is illegal. So, the
country is not able to save, and what is left in
the Excess Crude Revenue Account today is
only about $ 3.6billion".
The truth is, surviving the current decline in
oil prices and its negative impact on national
and global economies would have certainly
been made easier had we enough funds
shored up. Remember, it had been done
before during the 2008/09 crises. The
government was able to augment its budget
deficit and continue with most of its
development programmes with revenues
from a healthy Excess Crude Revenue
Account.
Had Dr Okonjo-Iweala not, in the past,
expressed her concerns, reservations and
angst about what another economic
meltdown without sufficient funds in the ECA
would do to us, then she should naturally be
our first target for finger-pointing. But she
did, several times over, she did. Yet we refuse
to blame the people who squandered our
future and have faced the one woman who
became an enemy of state governors and
legislature in her bid to secure the economic
future of this country.
The Minister has always been an advocate of
the need for the country to continue to create
safety nets in the form of savings in order to
cushion any potential negative effects of the
volatility in the international oil market on the
domestic economy should there be any
further depression in the global economy.
Just as she has repeatedly stressed that
increased efforts to diversify the country's
economy remains the only viable option open
to pursue in the face of dwindling revenues
from crude oil exports as well as increasing
volatility in the global oil market.
With elections fast approaching and our
current situation becoming fertile ground for
politicking, what is needed now is a
collaborative paradigm shift. We need to look
beyond the problem to the possible solutions;
we need to shift our focus from blaming the
finance minister and her economic team to
focusing on the things that matter. In truth,
as stakeholders, everyone has a role to play.
Let us not be carried away by the opinions of
naysayers as we look towards a better
economy in the years ahead.
Posted By David Aniemeka
No comments:
Post a Comment