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| Ayo Fayose |
GOVERNOR Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State
has criticized the Singe Treasury Account (TSA) initiative of the Federal
Government stating that the policy is inefficient and therefore urged the
initiators not to interfere towards extending it to states, adding that the
Federal Government in the first place was not in the position to dictate
to States the policies to undertake talk less of the ones that are not working
for those that introduced them.
Fayose stated this on Friday through his
Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka in
reaction to the call by the Minister of Budget and Planning, Senator Udoma Udo
Udoma urging the states to adopt the TSA initiatives in their respective states
in view of eradication corruption which had spread to virtually all nooks and
crannies of government.
Fayose vehemently frowned on the
initiative saying that it never worked for the people that initiated the policy,
besides, the government should pay attention to solving the challenges facing
the economy rather than counseling the states that are already doing better than
it.
“The Federal Government should rather
face the dwindling economy of the country instead of going about grandstanding
on a TSA that was already tainted with fraud.
“The same Minister whose office could
not prepare a simple budget should not assault the sensibilities of Nigerians
by telling States to accept a TSA policy that is characterized with fraud,
“The TSA policy was aimed at enriching
some individuals for doing virtually nothing and that can be seen in the discovery
of N25 billion that was said to have accrued to just a single company in one
month.
“The rate at which Dollar is rising,
will soon begin to talk about one US Dollar being equivalent to N500. As at
today, it is already more than N400 to $1. Workers are being sacked on a daily
basis while prices of goods are rising astronomically and Foreign Reserve is
declining on daily basis. Yet, all that this All Progressive Congress (APC) and
President Buhari’s Federal Government can be preaching is for states to accept
TSA as if that will stem the tide of the rising hunger and suffering that is
ravaging Nigeria.
“Methinks these people should just face
the reality of their failing government and seek for help from those who know
better than them instead of carrying with this attitude of ‘we know it all’ so
that the economy of this country will not collapse,” Fayose stated.
However, it would be recalled that in the penultimate weeks,
the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde in her remarks over Nigeria’s economy
explicitly attributed the cause of the present high exchange rate and
undesirable economic situation to Nigeria’s mono-economy which relied solely on
oil over the years, hence adversely affected as the prices on oil fell
unimaginably.
“IMF remains available to all
its member countries; so, the moment we are asked to help, we’ll do the best we
can to help. Both countries, Azerbaijan and Nigeria have been hard hit by oil
price decline shock, because their economies depend heavily on oil exports,
both in terms of trade, and in term also of revenue.
“When you lose a lot of that,
because the price decline was about 70%, then clearly it puts the economy under
shock,” Lagarde noted.
In her comparative analysis
between the two countries, Lagarde stated that Azerbaijan has viable structures
in place towards tackling the economic challenges facing the nation unlike
Nigeria which is yet to have a solid platform towards overcoming its anomalies.
“Policies adopted by the two
countries are different; Azerbaijan has certainly taken a good fiscal approach,
is reassessing spending, is really trying to restore its position, and is also
using the exchange rate as a buffer.
“Nigeria is not there and we
certainly hope that in terms of identification of fiscal resources, removal of
oil subsidies, she can do with an exchange rate policy that is sensible, in the
sense that it is not going to waste reserves.
“We have in particular indicated that a
persistent pegging of the naira would not be such a good idea. So, they have to
adopt their policies, they have to adopt their model, and if they need IMF’s
help, we’ll be ready to help. No question about that, and no stigma associated
with it. They are clearly a victim of external shock, and they have to face a response,
which is a national response to that situation,” IMF boss emphasized
Impliedly, the IMF boss indicted all the
previous leadership of the country over the years for negligence to diversify the
economy, and not really the present administration of President Buhari that is
about nine months in office and still battling to have its appropriation budget
passed in the National Assembly. It will also be recalled that apart from the
negligence to diversify the economy before now, all the discoveries so far
point to the fact that Nigeria’s present woes were logical following the huge amounts
of public funds looted, diverted, and mismanaged from the treasury running into
several billions of dollars.
Analytically, Fayose’s criticisms on the
economy and any other policies of the government are part of the fundamental
human rights, nevertheless, ought to be constructive. Admittedly, the economic
situation in the country is evidently regretful; nevertheless, blames and
counter blames should be on the right track.
Incidentally, Fayose reportedly had
Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in Science Laboratory Technology and a Higher
National Diploma (HND) in Biological Sciences, and therefore not eligible to analyze
and criticize economic policies. All issues relating to the economy must be
consistent with the positions of the professionals in the field particularly
the IMF boss that is a renowned authority on economics.
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