‘I Don’t Know When Recession Will End But It Will Surely End’ – Kemi Adeosun
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has declared that she does not know when the economic recession in Nigeria will end as it may last longer than expected.
Mrs Adeosun made this statement while speaking with newsmen in Abuja over the weekend after the Central Bank of Nigeria governor (CBN), Godwin Emefiele stated that the country would come out of recession before December.
Adeosun said, “I don’t want to predict when we will get out of recession. Let me tell you that we will get into growth and that’s how you get out of recession, because of the stimulus that we are providing.
“And it may take longer than we would like, but we will definitely get out of it. We are already seeing some positive signs in agriculture and solid minerals and with what we are trying to do with other sectors, I am very sure we will get out of it soon.”
The minister explained that despite the recession, lots of foreign investors were still interested in coming to Nigeria.
Speaking on the sale of assets, Adeosun noted that the Federal Government had yet to take a final decision on which of the country’s national assets would sold to finance the 2016 budget.
She said, “I think there are a number of assets that are being considered and I don’t think we have said this one or that one. There are some unused assets that are just lying idle, which people have come and suggested that ‘these things you are not using, can we lease them from you for money?’
“Hence, when they lease them from us, the taxes are still going to come to us. So, there are some things the government is sitting on, we don’t have money to do it; it makes sense for me to unlock those things to bring money into the economy at these difficult times so that we can move forward.
“We have not got to the stage of saying it’s this asset, or that. But should we just keep on borrowing or shall we know that things are a lot more difficult than we envisaged and turn on to an alternative strategy, which is looking at some of the underutilised assets and releasing them.”
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