How APC will beat PDP in the 2015 presidential election – Bukola Saraki Sani Tukur - 3 hours ago NATIONAL, NEWS A former Governor of Kwara State and senator representing Kwara Central Senatorial District, Abubakar Bukola Saraki , fielded questions from PREMIUM TIMES Editors, Musikilu Mojeed, Festus Owete and Sani Tukur two weeks ago. In the interview, Mr. Saraki speaks on why he defected from the PDP to the APC, the politics of his defection in the Senate, the crisis in the NGF, Kwara politics, the nation’s economy, the politics of 2015 and other sundry issues. The first part of the interview ran last week. Find it here . You are a local politician and you go home all the time to interact with your people. That philanthropy that you do every Ileya that causes problem in Kwara, what are you going to do about it to ensure that the processes are better, that there is no death? First of all, it is wrong to say it causes problem all the time. It is unfortunate that it did happen in some few instances. We have been looking at how to improve on the method, and how to improve on the facility. It is unfortunate really. A lot of people came up with sincere recommendations which we have looked at. Majority of the people who lost their lives are not just strangers, they are people that I know personally. We have become a tight family unit in the set up, so I feel it more than anybody else. These things used to run smoothly. What happened last time was because it was the festivity period and there were a lot of things on the table. We are now looking at how to get it better organised and avoid the unfortunate incident of last year. Can you tell us in clear terms if our economy is in danger. I ask this because the Minister of Finance has stated repeatedly that our economy is healthy. Let me give you both the good and bad sides. In today’s global economy, we are growing at about 6. 7%, inflation is down, currency is stable; these are good things happening. But we should always remember that is happening at a time we have oil at $107 per barrel. At this amount one should see an increase in our Excess Crude Account and increase in Foreign Reserve. Unfortunately that is not happening. For some of us, it is more frustrating because the revenues are down. It should be much higher than that, but because there are lots of leakages. I am sure even the Minister of Finance will agree, even when she was talking about what she has been able to achieve. She was saying that the budget under her supervision is detailed. Those are the good things we have achieved. How can you have a budget when the oil finances that account for majority of the revenue is not transparent? You cannot say leave oil finances and look at my budget because oil finances is your budget. So if oil finances is the way it is, when expenses are incurred and the Minister of Finance has not signed off to it. Or you are incurring something which the Minister of Finance has said I don’t want it done! She has on several occasions said that kerosene subsidy is not okay for payment, meanwhile payment is being made. So how can you say such finances are satisfactory? The Minister of Finance is saying I want to carry out forensic audit. Forensic audit! Money is gone, why? If we tighten all these leakages, there will be more money coming into the system; there will be more money for capital expenditure; deficits will be less; and foreign reserve will grow. But at the moment, our foreign reserve is low, and our currency is very vulnerable. We are also having low production level of less than 40% and so that too is impacting on our economy. We can do much better. What do you miss most about Oloye (Mr. Saraki’s late father, Olusola Saraki)?
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:54:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015