For those determined to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan a second time, let them take counsel from the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, whose continuing and characteristic understatements and underestimation of the harm being done to the Nigerian economy have become quite stifling. She speaks of ‘some challenges’ to the 2014 budget, and seeks to reassure the public that the problems confronting the economy are not such as should frighten or alarm the people. Oil production has slumped by a mere 180,000bpd, she says, and price of oil has slumped to less than $60 per barrel from a June peak of $114 per barrel, all juxtaposed against a 2015 budget benchmark price of $77 per barrel. But when she adds that by October, it was obvious that budget target revenue had fallen short by about a trillion naira, and capital budget for the third quarter of 2014 could not be cash-backed to the tune of about N100bn, we were looking up the barrel of a looming disaster. Principally, the minister blames production shut-in consequent upon pipeline vandalism for the revenue shortfall, a vandalism Dr Jonathan has spectacularly been unable to tackle because he entrusted misfits with the task of pipeline protection. Arguing that oil price may never rise to $100 per barrel, the minister says the government will embark on a number of policy initiatives to diversify revenue. It is clear to everybody, except Jonathan diehards, that the Dr Jonathan government is incompetent to handle the economic disaster that is unfolding upon Nigeria. Many states are unable to pay salaries as and when due, and are even owing more than a month or two; the judiciary is also finding it difficult to pay salaries at month’s end; the federal government is also experiencing difficulty paying all its staff at once; and many companies are shutting down amidst contradictory and harsh fiscal and monetary policies. In spite of the government’s half-baked Sure-P programme, unemployment is galloping ahead as a welter of criminal activities, including kidnapping, insurgency and armed robbery, overwhelms the country. It does not require a soothsayer to recognise that should Dr Jonathan be re-elected, his government would in response to the mounting economic problems unleash a poisonous cocktail of hasty, panicky and half-baked policies upon the country. The policies would be harsh, even cruel, wide-ranging and, in view of the obvious fact that the economic problems were either engendered by the government or mishandled by the government, inadequate and misdirected. Dr Jonathan has spent the last six years or so of his government misdirecting the country and refusing to anticipate problems; another term in office would not suddenly lead him to a burst of fresh, insightful and appropriate policies. Consider, for instance, how barely one year into his presidency, the number of fuel (PMS) importers rose to about 140 in 2011 from a tolerable 19 in 2008, and subsidy payment also rose to about N2.5 trillion as at December 2011 from a budget figure of about N245bn. The mad looting, in the midst of other unaccounted spending totalling some $10bn or $12bn, has still not been fully explained at the end of Dr Jonathan’s first term. -Idowu Akinlotan
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:02:33 +0000
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