…says money printing not matched with productivity
…gives hope on Tinubu’s bold, courageous measures
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, has attributed Nigeria’s current hyperinflation crisis to the imprudent printing of naira during the tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) printed a staggering N22.7 trillion through Ways and Means advances to the Federal Government between 2015 and 2023 when Buhari was President.
These trillions of naira were printed without corresponding increases in productivity, resulting is the current high inflation confronting the country, Edun said on Wednesday during an interface with the Senate Committee on Finance.
“We talked about inflation, and you have helped to solve that. Where has it come from? It came from eight years of just printing money not matched by productivity. It’s not like when you earn dollars, and you free the naira alongside it, although there’s even a better way than that. But that’s still not as bad,” Edun said.
“It’s not as if the money is matched by productivity increase in output. It is not. And what happened was that for eight years, the weak were left to their own devices. It is the privileged few that took everything. That’s the reality, so that money supply must be brought back.
“You distinguished senators have helped. You have given us the mandate to raise N7 trillion, which we will do by sucking money from the market, using it to pay back the central bank and giving the government a balanced book. We are going to audit even the N22.7 trillion printed aimlessly,” he said.
Edun, however, assured the committee members that various damage-mitigating economic policies being rolled out by the present government would in no distant time bring about great recoveries in terms of lower inflation rate and improved GDP growth rate.
He specifically informed the committee members that rather than indulging in such money printing or seeking avoidable loans, the President Bola Tinubu-led government is succeeding greatly in the area of revenue generation with over N13trn generated from the non-oil sector in 2023 and the trajectory being improved upon in 2024 going by revenues made in January and February.
“We should not be despondent. We have done the hard part,” he said.
He informed that President Tinubu has taken bold and courageous measures which are recognized around the world as being beyond the usual in order to robustly change the things that are wrong.
“And it wasn’t just a set of measures. It’s not just lifting of subsidy here or margin of rates there. No. It is a strategic plan, the whole fiscal side, the government’s finances have been repaired,” Edun said.
“You, distinguished senators, have helped further to encourage and enroll the executive to further repair the finances, the fiscal situation of this country by endorsing and urging us to do something about the leakages in the import duty, waiver system. And we have explained to you what we will do. And even from your body language, I believe you feel that that is in the right direction,” he said.
The Senate had two weeks ago constituted a nine-member ad-hoc committee to probe how the N30 trillion Ways and Means loan obtained by the Buhari administration from the CBN was spent.
The Senate said that reckless spending of the overdraft collected from the CBN under Godwin Emefiele, which the details were deliberately not made available to the National Assembly, largely accounted for the economic crisis in the country.
The Senate ad-hoc committee is headed by Jibirin Isah, the senator representing Kogi East Senatorial District, while Ekpeyong Asuquo (APC, Cross River North), Mohammed Monguno (APC, Borno North), Victor Umeh (LP, Anambra Central), Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West) and Sani Musa (Niger East) are members.
