When there was enough money, only those in government were enjoying it, but now everyone will have to pass through the stress. That is Nigeria's style of leadership!
The decline in the price of crude oil may have started taking its toll on Nigeria. Minister of Finance and the Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, announced austerity measures in Abuja on SUnday while addressing journalists on Government’s response to the crisis.
The measures which will see Nigerians paying more taxes, comes days after President Goodluck Jonathan formally announced his intention to contest the February 14 2015 presidential election.
Okonjo-Iweala, in company with the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr Bright Okogu; the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla; the Acting Chair, FIRS, Alhaji Kabir Mashi and other top officials, told the journalists that the nation would be experiencing a challenging time owing to the global fall in oil prices.
The measures government is taking, according to her, are
A reduction in public expenditures and international travels by public servants. She however, assured that the Jonathan Economic Management Team was “on top of the situation” to proffer measures that would help to ensure that the “common man” did not feel the impact of the oil price decline.
As part of the efforts to reduce expenditure, she said international travel within the public service would now be severely curtailed.
She said, “Every country that is well managed doesn’t just seat and allow a situation to happen to them. If they are well managed, they prepare the right set of policies to deal with the situation.
“Those days when we used to be like that in the ‘80s and 90s are over. In the ‘80s, when we had shocks, we didn’t take measures by ourselves to adjust. We waited for others to come and tell us how to adjust. But now we have competent teams and our job is not to sit and wait, but, to craft a set of policies and that will help us address these shocks.
“We are not talking about (cutting) salaries and benefits. We are talking of trainings and travels and these will be only for critical and essential items which will be pre-approved by the Head of Service and the Director-General of the Budget Office and then if someone invites you for overseas course, you can go provided they pay for your training and your stay and you have to furnish evidence that they are paying before you will be allowed.
“The purpose of this is to tell you what we are doing and this team is calm and will be effective and we are working with the monetary policy authorities and together we will manage the economy in a transparent manner so that people need not have any fear.”
Reduction in budget benchmark
She said the Federal Government was keeping an eye on the development, noting that this was why it come up with a multi-pronged strategic response to mitigate the adverse effects of global oil price fall on the economy and reassure investors.
The responses, according to her, are a mix of measures designed to boost non-oil revenues further, to plug loopholes and waste and cut unnecessary expenditures in order to cope with the situation.
Giving details of the responses to the oil price fall, she said that after a careful analysis of the situation, the economic team approved a $5 per barrel reduction in the 2015 budget benchmark price for oil from $78 to $73 per barrel.
APC Reacts
In their reaction to the saga, the leading opposition party said, “This country enjoyed high crude oil prices in the last 15 years. What has the PDP-led Federal Government done with the money in the last 15 years? They simply frittered the money away in massive corruption and misgovernment.
“They now want Nigerians to pay for their corruption and misdirection. Are Nigerians not already under austerity measure? They only want to impoverish us the more. Their ultimate aim is to devalue the naira; that’s their ultimate destination and this is very unfair.
“To make Nigerians, who did not participate in corruption, to suffer is not fair.”
