The Federal Government yesterday tackled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar over his economic blueprint. It said the plan was “a crude attempt at copying all that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been implementing”.
It said this is especially in the areas of job creation, infrastructure financing, relationship with the private sector, rejuvenation of the power sector, poverty reduction, debt management and the overall management of the economy.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who spoke at a briefing in Abuja, said it was more shocking that an opposition that has condemned all that the Buhari Administration has done would turn around to weave its so-called economic blueprint around the same things that are currently being done by the same administration.
The minister said the briefing was aimed at “exposing the hypocrisy inherent in an opposition that condemns an administration while also showcasing a blueprint that is nothing but a poor version of what’s on ground”.
But the PDP campaign council said Atiku’s economic plan was not the same as Buhari’s.
It said what its flagbearer presented to the organised private sector in Lagos State last week “represents the hopes of a new beginning, which Nigerians eagerly anticipate”.
The party added: “What Minister Lai Mohammed reeled out as achievements of the APC is a compilation of the reasons why Nigerians have roundly rejected the ruling party.”
On infrastructure, Mohammed quoted the former Vice President as saying in his economic blueprint, that ‘rebuilding infrastructure and reducing infrastructure deficit will enhance the carrying capacity of the economy and unleash growth and wealth creation’.
The minister noted that no one understands this better than the Buhari Administration.
He added: “Even our worst critics will agree that our record on infrastructure development is next to none in the history of this country.”
To buttress his point, Mohammed said: “Across the country, we have constructed 8,352.94 kilometres of roads, rehabilitated 7,936.05 kilometres of roads, constructed 299 bridges, maintained 312 bridges and created 302,039 jobs in the process.
“We have also delivered houses in 34 states of the Federation under the first phase of the National Housing Project.
“We were able to achieve these through a combination of budget increases and innovative infrastructure financing methods.
“Whereas we met a budget of N18.132 billion for the roads component of the Federal Ministry of Works when we assumed office in 2015, the budget for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing increased exponentially to N260.082 billion in 2016; N274.252 billion in 2017, N356.773 billion in 2018, N223.255 billion in 2019, N227.963 billion in 2020 and N241.864 billion in 2021.
“Therefore, for anyone using this as a campaign stunt, without acknowledging what we have done so far, is cheap and disingenuous.”
The minister said Atiku also promised to ‘break the jinx’ in infrastructure financing.
He asked rhetorically: “Really? We state, unequivocally, that the worst jinx in infrastructure financing was the PDP administration from 1999 to 2015.
“Indeed, the Buhari Administration has long broken that jinx, leveraging on such innovative schemes as the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (which is being used to finance the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge and the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano road), Sukuk (which has delivered a total of 1,881 kilometres of roads between 2017 and 2020) and the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme (for the construction and rehabilitation of Lokoja-Obajana-Kabba-Ilorin road, reconstruction of Apapa Wharf road, construction of Apapa-Oworonsoki-Ojota road and the Bonny-Bodo road with bridge).
“The NNPC-funded part of the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme has also delivered nine roads in Northcentral, three in Northeast, two in Northwest, two in Southeast, three in Southsouth and two in Southwest for a total of 1,804 kilometres of roads.”
On power, he quoted the ex-Vice President as saying that ‘investments in additional generation capacity are futile without consideration for the complementary transmission and distribution infrastructure to wheel the additional energy’.
Mohammed said: “It is apparent that Alhaji Atiku has either not heard of the Siemens partnership with the Federal Government under the Presidential Power Initiative, the most ambitious project yet in the efforts to improve the seemingly-intractable power sector on which the PDP frittered over 16 billion dollars to procure nothing but darkness.”
According to him, the Nigeria-Siemens partnership was consummated with the signing of the Implementation Agreement on July 22, 2019.
The three-phase project, he said, will deliver 7,000MW in the first phase, 11,000MW in the second phase and 25,000MW in the third phase.
“This will positively impact job creation, boost investor confidence, accelerate economic growth and reduce the cost of doing business.”
For those who may be in doubt, he described the project as a “game changer” saying “as you may have read, electricity equipment ordered under the project has started arriving in the country.”
He noted that when the equipment is installed, “there will be a major improvement in the supply of electricity across the country.”
Mohammed said it is also amazing that the former VP has not heard or read that the Senate has passed the electricity bill 2022 that would allow states to generate and distribute power as well as solve the sector’s challenges.
The minister said Atiku also spoke on poverty reduction, which he said would be the ‘centrepiece of our economic development agenda’.
He asked: “Could it be that His Excellency has not heard about our National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), the unprecedented programme that is, directly and indirectly, impacting the lives of poor Nigerians and creating jobs, especially for the youths, through four clusters, namely: the N-Power Programme, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), the National Home-Grown School Feeding System (NHGSFP) and the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Programme.
“From 2016 to date, the NSIP, which has received a commendation from many international agencies, has empowered one million youths while an additional 500,000 are undergoing various training under the N-Power programme; enrolled 1,632,480 households in the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme and gave productive cash grants of N150,000 each to 4,234 people.
“The NSIP has also stimulated unprecedented enrolments in public primary schools through the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme that is feeding 9.8 million children, while there are 2,424,253 beneficiaries of the GEEP loans under TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni, in addition to a total of 1,142,783 individuals who have registered to benefit from GEEP 2.0 under the three loan products.
“These programmes represent a practical demonstration of the progressive achievement of the President’s target of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030.”
Mohammed quoted the former Vice President to have told his audience that if elected, his Administration would ‘establish a strong partnership (with the private sector) in investing in infrastructure, creating jobs, income and in the fight against poverty’.
“Let’s inform His Excellency that the Buhari Administration’s ‘’warm handshake’’ with the private sector has delivered and is delivering an unprecedented number of projects, including the 650,000bpd Dangote Refinery, Dangote Fertilizer plant, Lekki Deep Sea Port, BUA Cement, the 5,000bpd Waltersmith Modular Refinery in Imo State; the 2,500bpd Duport Modular Refinery/Energy Park in Edo State; the 2,000bpd Atlantic Modular Refinery in Bayelsa State; the 12,000bpd Azikel Modular Refinery also in Bayelsa; the five LPG Bottling plants and six LPG depots in 10 northern states and Abuja, the 48,000 L/D base oil production plant in Rivers and the 10,000 Metric Tonnes Per Day methanol production plant in Bayelsa, just to mention a few,” the minister said.
He noted that “these refineries and other projects are the results of a ‘’warm handshake’’
between the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board and private sector actors.”
The private sector, he added, is also involved in the ongoing infrastructure development through the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme.
The minister said that “shockingly, the former Vice President seems to know little or nothing about the Buhari Administration’s unprecedented efforts to make fertilizer available at affordable prices to Nigerian farmers, and how global developments have negatively impacted the price of fertilizer today when he said ‘farmers now pay 200% more for a bag of fertilizer – if they see it – than they did in 2020’.
He said: “This is an unfortunate statement that reflected the total lack of understanding of the issues at stake.
“The Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI), which was flagged off in Dec 2016 by President Muhammed Buhari, aimed to support the domestic blending of NPK 20:10:10 fertilizer in order to reduce the challenges of the Nigerian farmers.
“The PFI delivered on key outcomes, including over 30 million bags of 50kg NPK 20:10:10 equivalent during the project period and price reduction on fertilizer from over N10,000 to under N5,500.
“Over its five-year run, the programme succeeded in increasing the number of blending plants from only four to 72 through the rejuvenation of 68 moribund blending plants, creating hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs and thousands of direct jobs in the process.”
Mohammed said a number of factors beyond Buhari administration led to the current situation in which the cost of fertilizer rose to between 110 and 150 per cent.
He said: “That’s between N15,000 for NPK 20:10:10 and N23,000 for NPK 15:15:15). These factors include a three-fold increase in the cost of natural gas, a primary feedstock in fertilizer production, post-COVID-19 shutdowns of key raw materials manufacturing plants, sanctions imposed on Belarus and Russia, occasioned by the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the impact of significant domestic inflation on global and in-country logistics and transportation of fertilizer raw materials.”
He noted that it is also pertinent to recall that President Buhari had negotiated a fixed price for Phosphate at $290/MT and a fixed discount of $15/MT for Potash from the government of Morocco and Russia, respectively.
He said the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative purchased raw materials at these prices for four years, between 2017 and 2020.
“From 2021 however, upon the restructuring of PFI, raw material purchases were undertaken at globally-traded prices. Phosphate prices increased 32 per cent from $290/MT in 2017 to $1,255.0/MT in 2022, Potash prices rose by 364 per cent moving from $256.0/MT in 2017 to $1,187.5/MT in 2022, while Urea prices rose by 246% from about $300/MT in 2018 to $1,037.5/MT in 2022.
“Under this development, no magic can keep the price of fertilizer at what it was before the astronomical increase in the cost of production, he said.
Mohammed noted that in his presentation, the former Vice President said ‘Nigeria under the APC-led government has consistently run on budget deficits since it came to power in 2015’, and that these ‘budget deficits are often above the three per cent threshold permissible under the Fiscal Responsibility Law’.
Atiku’s narrative, he said, is a misrepresentation of the facts saying “the truth is that Nigeria has been running on budget deficits since 2009 (not since 2015), even when oil prices were over US$100 per barrel.”
He said oil prices fell significantly from mid-2014, resulting in the country’s economic recession in 2016.
According to the minister, the urgency to recover from the recession through an expansionary fiscal policy resulted in continued budget deficits.
He explained that in the last three years, the deficit level exceeded the three per cent threshold stipulated in the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.
“Again, this is understandable because shortly after the Nigerian economy recovered from recession, it was hit by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“What His Excellency failed to tell his audience is that the Fiscal Responsibility Act, Section 12(2), allows for the budget deficit to exceed the three per cent threshold if, in the opinion of the President, there is a clear and present threat to national security or the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The Covid-19 pandemic, he said, triggered an existential threat in all economies of the world, Nigeria inclusive.
“Though Nigeria quickly recovered from the economic recession, it is now facing the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, the lingering impact of COVID-19, and elevated inflation in most economies, prompting monetary tightening, with the adverse effects on capital inflow to emerging markets economies.”
Mohammed noted that while Nigeria may be facing economic challenges, the former Vice President’s pronouncement that “the future of the country’s economy is ‘bleak’ is sheer scaremongering.”
He assured that the country’s economic outlook is not bleak adding that instead, the economy has been resilient, having recovered from two recessions within five years – in 2016 and 2020.
He said the country’s economy sustained its recovery from the 2020 recession for the seventh consecutive quarter, growing by 3.54 per cent in real terms in Q2 2022, from 3.11 per cent in Q1 2022.
Many sectors recorded positive economic growth, reflecting the effective implementation of policy measures prescribed in the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), Annual Budgets, Finance Acts and National Development Plan (NDP).
On debt, he quoted the former Vice President as saying ‘we will review the country’s debt strategy by focusing on concessional and semi-concessional sources with lower interest rates and relatively long-term maturity.’
“Again, that is already being done by this Administration. In order to manage debt service costs and reduce refinancing risk, the thrust of the strategy is that this Administration will maximize concessional borrowing from multilateral and bilateral sources.
“In addition, new borrowing in the domestic and international capital markets would be for long tenors. Concessional borrowings are, in any case, long-term loans.
“To confirm the commitment to the above strategy and their implementation, over 58 per cent of the External Debt Stock as of March 31, 2022, was from multilateral and bilateral sources while short-term domestic debt was less than 22 per cent of the Total Domestic Debt Stock as at the same date.
“In any case, the Lagos-Ibadan, the Abuja-Kaduna and the Warri-Itakpe standard gauge rail lines were constructed with concessional loans, just like the ongoing rehabilitation of the Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri narrow gauge line.
“Same applies to the new airport terminals in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Enugu and Port Harcourt. So, the former Vice President has not said anything new,” he said.
On security, he noted that “all that the leader of a party that frittered the money meant for the purchase of weapons and platforms for the military on frivolous activities could say is ‘we will take tough and difficult decisions on security matters without fear or favour.’
He wondered “while the PDP administration “lost confidence in our military and opted instead for mercenaries, President Buhari, who has never wavered in his belief in the capability of our fighting forces, steadily and surely re-equipped the military, which today is decimating the bandits and terrorists that had held sway in some parts of the country, thus restoring security.”
Mohammed said he is not really very surprised that His Excellency the former Vice President only reeled out, in his so-called Economic Blueprint, what we have been doing in the past seven years plus in infrastructure development, infrastructure financing, poverty reduction, power reform, job creation, relationship with the private sector, debt management and the overall management of the economy.
“That’s what you get from someone who leaves the country after losing an election, only to parachute into town when another election is due,” he said.
The minister said it is a measure of how much the Buhari administration has achieved in all sectors that “the best the opposition could do is to seek to copy what the Administration has been doing.”
“Yet, the opposition – in its desperation to get power – has continued to deny and derogate the Administration’s achievements.”
He noted that though there is nothing about Buhari’s achievements they haven’t said before, “no amount of deceit, misrepresentation, scaremongering, distortion of facts or derogation can subtract from the visible achievements of the Buhari Administration.”
The minister insisted that an Administration that engaged in massive infrastructure development despite the paucity of resources, introduced the most expansive and effective poverty reduction and job creation policy in the history of this country, re-equipped the military to tackle daunting security challenges instead of resorting to the use of mercenaries, is moving the nation from darkness to light by embarking on the most-ambitious electricity project yet, is partnering with the private sector to tackle the challenges facing the nation, and borrowed to rebuild rather than for consumption should not be denigrated by an opposition that lacks, originality, and an opposition that is aping a government it derides.”
PDP faults Fed Govt
The PDP campaign organisation described the Minister’s claim as “a Tsunami of a lie”.
The statement said: “To begin with, it has been openly acknowledged that this current administration came into power without a single sheet of paper of what could be called a policy document.
“Nigerians are aware that in both 2015 and 2019, it took the APC six months to constitute a cabinet.
“Perhaps the minister might be interested in telling Nigerians if it is also part of the APC manifesto to foot drag in forming a government.
“It is on record that the first economic recession that the country experienced in 2016, which happens to be our worst economic decline in thirty years, happened primarily because the APC administration applied what can be called a catch-up strategy to the early signals of the recession.
“That is why to this day, Nigerians are more agreeable to the fact that the tenure of the APC has been nothing but a sheer waste of time, all thanks to the catch-up economic strategy of the ruling party that has left the people more malnourished, sick and disillusioned.
“The poor records of the APC in the areas of economic management, jobs creation, education, security and in virtually all spheres of our national life is the reason why there is a lot of anxiety about the 2023 general election”.
The PDP campaign said next year’s election will be a referendum on the APC, adding that the ruling party presents a global case study of how a political party can lose popular goodwill within a short period of time.
Continuing, it said: “Nigerians of all hues, both the rich and those that are not; the educated and those who are not; the elderly and the young are all witnesses to the scandal that the APC has become in the art of governance.
“Nigerians are rallied in their frustration with the APC and the promise of a better future that our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar holds for the country after his victory in the 2023 presidential election.
“What Minister Lai Mohammed reeled out as achievements of the APC is a compilation of the reasons why Nigerians have roundly rejected the ruling party.
“It’s nothing but a testimonial of failures. Conversely, what His Excellency Atiku Abubakar presented to the organised private sector in Lagos State last week represents the hopes of a new beginning, which Nigerians eagerly anticipate.”
The PDP said trying to associate the Atiku policy plans with the policies of the APC was the comical height of Minister Mohammed’s aversion to the truth.
“It is contempt not just against the PDP and our presidential candidate, but also to the whole nation. Lai Mohammed must apologise to Nigerians for such insensitive onslaught against truth in broad daylight,” it added.
Source: The Nation
