The InfoStride Forum

This report was copied from the Minister of Finance's , Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, social network update.


My dear brothers and sisters,

I wish to thank you all for making time to connect with me here. I appreciate your willingness to communicate with me by way of suggestions, criticisms, questions, and general expression of your sentiment to me as one of your representatives in government.

All your comments are read by me; and I wish to say thank you to those who have made some very useful suggestions on the state of the nation as it is - particularly regarding issues and developments arising from the New Year's day announcement by PPPRA on the cancellation of monies being paid to petroleum marketers as subsidy for domestic consumption.

Under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan, the administration has laboured to determine the best route to ensure Nigeria's economic strength in the years ahead. Only with careful analysis and extensive deliberation do we propose the policy on fuel subsidy. It allows Nigeria to confidently walk the path to economic success.

The debt crises currently suffered by developed economies is indication that governments have a responsibility to the people to manage revenues and expenditures wisely. With the subsidy on fuel projected to reach 118% of the Federal Government Capital Expenditures and 4.1% of the country's entire GDP, maintaining the fuel subsidy would not be a wise decision.

Without reform, many of the services which the people rely on government to provide would not be available because the government simply would not have cash to make the necessary investments. By not making a change now, we would actually put ourselves in an even worse and more dependent position later. We would be forced to mortgage many more assets of our beautiful country to outsiders just so that we could keep things going. We fought for foreign debt relief in the last administration precisely because we needed to break away from such a reality.

By implementing change now, we can avoid that dangerous future. If we take the savings that are generated from ending the fuel subsidy and invest them in our infrastructure and our people, we will emerge a stronger, more powerful nation.

Many have countered that it is impossible to trust the government to actually invest such savings given the government's antecedents of failing to provide such services in the past. I understand these reservations. It is well known that corruption and greed have hindered our ability to move forward on the promises of development. These are valid claims, but as one of you, I ask that we not let the past define the future.

Since we won democracy, we have taken great strides as a nation to increase our transparency and hold our elected officials accountable. We are far far from perfect, but we are taking steps in the right direction. That much is undeniable.

I also understand those that say we should look for ways to tackle the inefficiencies and the misappropriation of funds in government now instead of looking to remove the subsidy for savings. This is also true, and every day we are working to make sure that government is more accountable. For example, we are actively trying to eliminate ghost workers on government payrolls so that we can disburse more funds to the people. Likewise, we will remain committed to publishing the amount of money disbursed to state governments so that the people can hold elected officials, at all levels, accountable for the management of their funds.

However, moving Nigeria forward will take simultaneous action on multiple fronts. With the glaring issue that the fuel subsidy alone takes more money away from the government than it earns, it is important that we look to fix the situation as soon as possible. We cannot let the subsidy for fuel consume our ability to provide resources for education, health, security and more.

With that said, I publicly affirm that we will work tirelessly to explore all means by which we can reduce wastes, extravagance and leakages in the system. We will work tirelessly to reduce our recurrent expenditures and increase our capital investments. We will work and we will change the way government has been run for much of Nigeria's past. We need your support. We need your cooperation. We need your understanding. We also need your prayers.

I love this country. May God bless Nigeria.

Best regards.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala