OKONJO-IWEALA, SANUSI BEMOAN POWER SHORTAGE

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Lamido Sanusi yesterday decried the adverse effects of shortage of power supply in the country.

Okonjo-Iweala said the power situation needed to be improved for the economy to move forward. Also, Sanusi bemoaned the power situation, saying that no bank would give a loan to a company that has no power to run its business. Both spoke yesterday in Lagos at the 4th Renaissance Capital Annual Pan African Investors’ Conference.

The CBN governor revealed that the banks refuse to give loans to many companies due to the poor power situation that affected the ability to repay. Sanusi said that companies do not get loans from banks because many of them cannot fulfill the demands of banks as their businesses are not doing well.

“The issue is that the business environment is hostile especially to the real sector. It is not entirely that the interest rate is high; it also has to do with infrastructure. If the right infrastructure are there, interest rates would definitely come down.

The high interest rate is also meant to protect the banks and if the banks are not protected the entire economy goes down,” Sanusi said. According to the CBN governor, “Low interest rate does not compensate for lack of power.

It does not also compensate for lack of infrastructure. Yet we are concerned about interest rate but we cannot risk it now to lower interest rate until we are sure the condition is right for that.” Also speaking at the conference, the Minister of Finance said that if South Africa with population of about 50 million people could generate over 40,000 megawatts of electricity, why not Nigeria with over 150 million people.

Okonjo-Iweala said the biggest challenge facing the present administration is job creation and that to tackle that, the power sector must be up and running.

The minister noted that the Goodluck Jonathan administration has done a lot to improve power generation, assuring that in a matter of months, the results would begin to show.

“Nigeria’s economy has been growing on an average of seven per cent in the past few years. When we came in during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second term, we had a growth of 2.4 per cent, but it has risen to seven per cent,” she said. Okonjo-Iweala noted that there is no country that does not have problems, but what the citizens want to hear is when the problems would be solved.

She said: “We have actually started doing things rightly. We are beginning to keep the macro-economic challenge stable. Another challenge is that of fiscal consolidation. When we tighten, we direct investment to areas that need growth.

“When this administration came on board the budget was spending 74 per cent for recurrent. Our desire is to get to 60 per cent of recurrent and 40 per cent of capital expenditure by 2015, but we have gotten to 68 per cent.

“Another area we are working on right now is to bring down domestic debt. This year we would redeem over N100bn bond.”

She said that power and agriculture are the ‘game changers’ in Nigeria. According to her, “the Minister for Agriculture is doing a good job. He has been able to transform the sector and very soon, more jobs would be created in that area. He has turned even what the small farmers are doing into business.”

Also speaking at the event, Chief Executive Officer, West Africa, Renaissance Capital, Mrs. Yvonne Ike, said that Africa especially Nigeria is going through a growth revolution.

Ike said: “Despite the fact that about 40 per cent of the continent’s population is still living below $1 per day; 133 million young people are illiterates and infrastructure deficit remained widespread, the continent still hold a lot of promise for the world order.

Meanwhile, Okonjo- Iweala at another event in Lagos said that disbursement of funds for Federal Government‘s ministries, departments and agencies would henceforth be based on judicious usage of the previous allocations given to them. The minister said this at the Nigerian Navy base, Apapa, during the commissioning of tow boats newly acquired by the service.

Lauding the leadership of the Nigerian Navy for putting into effective use, the allocation made available for procurement of boats which has engendered some sanity in the Niger Delta creeks, the minister maintained that the current administration of President Jonathan is poised to make more funds available for all its agencies once they show performance in their duties.

Her words: “The Federal Government is happy to assist the Nigerian Navy because over time there had been successes in the discharge of their duties.

The Chief of Naval Staff came to us (FG) with evidence of what they are achieving in the troubled Niger Delta and along Nigerian maritime domain and this has reduced illegal oil theft; the reason for which they need these patrol boats. When you are getting results like that, you are now encouraged to put more muscle and money behind it.”

Speaking at the event, Minister of State for Defence, Erelu Olusola Obada, also assured the service that the Federal Government is determined to reposition the armed forces for optimal performance in the country.

Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Dele Ezeoba, who thanked the Federal Government for the procurement of the boats, however, maintained that the Nigerian Navy requires a minimum of 40 boats to effectively curtail illegal activities on the nation’s waters.

Source: National Mirror