Reps rap Buhari over recession

The House of Representatives, on Thursday, took a swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly crumbling the nation’s economy through his bad monetary policies and incompetent economic team.

The lawmakers in a resumed debate on a motion on the urgent need to address the economic recession in the country, moved by Hon. Mukaila Olayiwola Kazzim, insisted on the reversal of all such bad policies, as well as take immediate steps to revitalise the ailing industries in the country.

‪Leading debate on the motion, the lawmaker noted that due to the crash of crude oil prices from over $120 per barrel in the last quarter of 2014 to about $45 presently, “Nigeria has been witnessing a dramatic reduction in oil earnings, which has impacted negatively on revenues available to finance expenditure, as a result, the foreign reserves had been depleted to bridge the gap.”

‪Kazzim also noted that the loss of confidence in the nation’s economy led to increase in the rate of outflow of businesses worth more than N4 trillion following declining oil revenues and the devaluation of the Naira.

‪He expressed concern about the current state of economic downturn in the country, which was predicted in 2014 by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) based on the aforementioned events, coupled with declining foreign reserves and rising external debts which, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO) now hovers around $10 billion from $3.5bn nine years ago.

‪Contributing on the debate,  Hon. Tijani Yusuf,  lamented that the non economic direction brought the nation to where it is today, lambasting the way and process Treasure Single Account (TSA) is being operated.

‪”You don’t dump money in one place, the circulation and spreading of this money help the economy.

‪”TSA is good, we must ensure contractors get their money when due. There should be deliberate measure to reconcile the economy. We need emergency joint session to rejig ideas on moving the nation forward”, he said.

‪Hon. Chachangi on his part, expressed worry, pointing out that the nation needed a clear economic direction and policy to achieve a desired goal.

‪”We need to make clear, what direction we are heading, we need to come up with clear economic policy that would give us a direction to achieve more. The fact that we don’t produce and export anything is detrimental to our economy”, he said.