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By Bimbo Oyesola, Uche Usim Isaac Anumihe, Chinelo Obogo, Steve Agbota and Chiwendu Obienyi
The statement by Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, had last week that the Federal Government would sell some government-owned assets to fund the 2021 budget in addition to government’s growing borrowing has drawn the ire of Nigerians.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and others, yesterday, cautioned against the move.
SERAP Deputy Director, Mr. Kolawole Oluwadare, in a letter to the Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of House of Representatives Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila asked the National Assembly to urgently review the 2021 appropriation Act to stop President Muhammadu Buhari from selling public properties to fund the N13 trillion 2021 budget.
SERAP equally called on the National Assembly to identify areas in the budget to slash which it said included salaries and allowances for National Assembly members and those in the Presidency in order to reduce the growing level of governments budget deficit and borrowing.
“The National Assembly has a constitutional and oversight responsibility to protect valuable public properties and to ensure a responsible budget spending. Allowing the government to sell public properties and to enjoy almost absolute discretion to borrow to fund the 2021 budget would amount to a fundamental breach of constitutional and fiduciary duties.
“Selling valuable public properties to fund the 2021 budget would be counter-productive, as this would be vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement. It would undermine the social contract with Nigerians, leave the government worse off, and hurt the country in the long run. It is neither necessary nor in the public interest.”
Commenting on the development, Head, Research at FSL Securities, Victor Chiazor, advised the Federal Government to be creative and seek alternative means of generating revenue other than the sale of critical national assets.
‘‘The Federal Government should go back to the drawing board and think of better ways to generate revenue. The truth is that there are a lot of leakages in this administration and I think if we sit back, we will find ways to generate revenue to help us achieve the budget other than selling our national assets. If you sell government assets this year, then what would we sell next year?”
Elder statesman, Tanko Yakassai also called on the National Assembly to immediately move a motion demanding answers from the Federal Government on why it wanted to sell off national assets to fund the 2021 budget.
Speaking to Daily Sun, Yakassai said lawmakers were representatives of the people, hence the need to thoroughly probe the actions of the Federal Government and hold them to account on behalf of their constituents. He said the issue of selling national assets is a serious one and not what should be handled informally or through press statements.
Former member, Presidential Task Force on the Reform of Nigeria Customs and member Presidential Committee on Port problems, Lucky Amewiro, said the Federal Government should be able to rethink and drop the Idea of selling public assets to finance the 2021 budget, warning that public assets were not for budget support.
In his submission, Mr Eze Onyekpere, Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Mr.Eze Onyekpere, described the plan as horrible.
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“This administration has run out of ideas and President Buhari has lost capacity to govern this country.’’
In his contribution, professor of statistics, University of Ibadan and Coordinator, UI Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistics (UI-LISA), Olusanya Olubusoye, said the Buhari-led government was a prodigal one which lacked creativity and foresight.
He argued that if the government keeps borrowing and selling assets, it will get to a time the whole country including Nigerians would be sold.
“It appears we are dealing with a prodigal government and it is so unfortunate. It tells us that the managers of our economy have no think-tank. They are not creative and they completely have no idea on how to run this economy other than to borrow or look for idle money or force people to pay multiple.”
But, professor of the Capital Markets, Uche Uwaleke, said selling off unproductive national assets to fund the budget was not a bad idea but cautioned that it must be done transparently and through the Capital Markets to get many Nigerians involved.
In their reactions, organised labour equally lampooned the Federal Government’s bid to sell national assets to fund budget.
Describing the government as prodigal, labour warned that should government move ahead with the plan, practically there would be nothing else for the Nigerian nation.
Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, lamented that government has always been selling the nation’s assets to their cronies despite resistance from the Organised Labour and other well meaning Nigerians.
“After 2021, there would be nothing to sell again. It is a prodigal economy. If they want to sell assets to fund 2021, how about 2022, 2023, are you going to sell our children?”
Ajaero, who is also the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) said the present situation was inevitable as government through greed and lack of foresight had sold parastatals and agencies that could have been given her money.
According to him, Power Holding Company of Nigeria ( PHCN), Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigeria Telecommunications (NITEL) were all self-sufficient and declaring profits before they were sold.
“The level of prodigality of government is abysmal and every Nigerians have seen it. Since the unbundling of the PHCN, our electricity has been worse off while Nigerians are paying for local consumption in foreign currency.
“The same thing for petrol, you devalue the currency, increase tariff of petrol and makes Nigerians to pay what they are not earning through inflation of goods and services. It’s quite bad.”
