The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said that the Executive arm of government was not to be blamed for the delay in passing the 2015 appropriation bill into law.
Speaking in a radio programme monitored in Lagos by Primetime Reporters, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala who also denied knowledge of any blame against the executive arm of government in respect to 2015 appropriation bill also said that she was daily in touch with the committees who were examining those documents.
She explained that because of the fall in oil price, the executive had to withdrew the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) on two different occasions for revision wondering what the government would ever do that would please the critics.
“You see, when you do something here you are blamed, if you don’t do, you are blamed. Sometimes, it is very difficult. If we didn’t withdraw those ones and revise it, even when the last fall occurred, we didn’t take it back again to revise it below sixty-five against criticisms”.
“But why didn’t we do that? The reason is because the constitution says that you must submit the budget before the beginning of the new fiscal year. So, we said go ahead but what we are going to do, we are going to prepare scenarios so that Nigerians know that even if oil price fall below that sixty-five, whether it is fifty or whether it is forty-five, we have prepared the measures we would take and those measures include generating more revenue. That is where we are trying to focus attention now”.
“We don’t want to be distracted by the lies being packaged against the economy. I want to warn Nigerians, a lot of playing fast and loose with numbers. It is rampant now in the polity, don’t be deceived”, she said.
The Minister debunked the allegation that the common man on the streets had not felt the impacts of the government policies adding that the small scale farmers, the average Nigerians had been at the bottom of the current government’s policies.
Referring the critics to the agricultural sector where she said that food was being produced in the country more than ever before explaining that over 7 million metric tonnes more rice which are of good quality had been produced even as she disclosed that people bag them pretending that it came from abroad thus the reason the price of food had remained reasonable and inflation remained at 8 percent inspite of the nation’s various problems.
According to her,” remember it was 13 percent two years ago. So, that is a concrete proof we are working on the things that affect ordinary Nigerians, the food you put in your stomach, we are working on roads, we have mentioned all the roads that have been built. Rails, some children who are 20 years old today who didn’t know what rail was, the rail line is working, they can now go from Lagos to Kano”.
