MY CONTRIBUTION ON THE ECONOMIC DEBATE -WAY OUT OF RECESSION By Senator Adesoji Akanbi

My Distinguished Colleagues, it is true that Nigeria is in recession at this point of our live but could this have necessitate the sales of our National Assets? My Distinguished Colleagues, my answer to this remain capital NO, just as we all know that it is not only inappropriate to dig a hole to fill another hole but economically it is unthinkable and historically it is unprofitable in every sense of it.
Distinguished Colleagues, it is not only inappropriate to support the idea to sell our National Assets but it is very illegal and it is against the salient provisions of our constitution; -Section 16 of 1999 constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended forbid specifically subsection (2)(c) outrightly negate the idea of concentration of government assets in the hand of few individuals in the society at the detriment of the populace.
Historically speaking ,selling of our National Assets has not bring any of our desires to place therefore I’m in strong doubt if selling of our National Assets at this junction will ever bring to us our utmost desires.

Mr. President and my Distinguished colleagues, another reason why we should jettison the idea of selling our National Assets is that it will be undervalue by any buyer at this economic recession.
 Having stated clearly my position on this topical National economical issue as a patriotic Nigerian, I will be unjustified to only submit without profound an alternative solutions that will revamp our country economy out of this present economic recession.
Therefore, Distinguished colleagues it is my humble view and submission that Nigeria will still and shall still come out stronger and better of this current economic recession without necessarily opt for a cheap option to sell our National Assets but by urgently take a drastical and sincere step on some of our over lied untapped resources that are readily available at our disposal.
Federal government should as a matter of urgency bring all the aggrieved groups in the South- South of the country into a negotiation table whereby all their genuine agitations can be address and lay to rest because Nigeria as a country currently in recession cannot continue to be losing millions of barrel of Oil daily as a result of their incessant bombing of our oil installations in the region.

Mr. President and my Distinguished Colleagues, a country where we are spending less than 30% of our income on Capital expenditure and above 70% on recurrent expenditure will hardly be able to get out of recession as quickly as possible.
 The Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature must be ready to make sacrifice and even our Executive Governors in various States must be ready to do away with their security votes and if need be, they have to be transparent about it. A country like Ethiopia as at now has reached a level where 60% of her income is being spent on capital expenditure and 40% on recurrent expenditure; this should be the ultimate target of this present administration.
Despite increase in our debt profile it is still believed  that Nigeria can still borrow from the International financial institutions and use it to reflate the economy by quickly taking the advantage of the credibility of President Muhamadu Buhari which is a good leverage because some International financial institutions are ready to borrow us money for infrastructure development.

Moreover, Mr. President, this current administration should reduce local borrowing in order not to be in competition with private sector because the banks prefer to borrow money to Government than private sector and that will definitely run down our economy further.
Distinguished colleagues I have this on a good authority that in 2015, Nigeria used 630Billion naira to import food items and beverages and this represented our taste for foreign items which must stop at this point, and all of us have a role to play by patronizing made in Nigeria goods.

Mr. President it is worthy of note to say that the present Government has started well in the area of Agriculture, but more still need to be done to encourage our existing farmers and make farming more attractive to young educated graduates. And the good news is that we have the ability and capability to feed ourselves at a very reduce cost but the Government have to play more roles in area of providing transportation of farm-produce to various markets at low cost. Government should put some Palliative measures in place, in this area.
Distinguished colleagues, outright banning of imported food items is not the real solution but this can be best done by placing high tariff on them to discourage the importer and consumers. Our Custom has to play their statutory role by manning our porous borders efficiently so as to prevent the smugglers from perpetrating economy sabotage of getting those bound- products to our various markets.

Nigeria  Refineries must be put in good working condition because Nigeria cannot continue to be spending over 50% of her forex-earning mainly from sales of crude oil on International market to import back Petroleum by-product for our local consumption .We are left with very little foreign exchange which is not adequate to support our manufacturing sector in area of machinery parts, raw materials procurement that will enable our industry to operate at maximum capacity which will create jobs for our teaming un-employed youths.

We also need to look inward to generate more revenue by widening our tax base in a retarded economy, people should not be over-taxed, but there are still spaces where we can improve on our tax revenue.
Our Value Added Tax (VAT) has been 5% since introduction of VAT for over 23years ago and VAT is mainly on luxury goods and it should be review upward.

Treasury Single Account is a good idea ,and it has helped to cub corruption in the system but the Federal Government has to ensure that much money is not kept idle in the central bank, a situation where large amount of money is being deposited in Central Bank without making any positive impact on our economy should be reviewed and such money should be used to support our Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) to the fullest, because without supporting SME, we will continue to have high rise of un-employment.

On a final note, Distinguished colleagues, diversification of Nigeria economy at this point should no longer be a slogan as it uses to be but rather all our energies should be concentrated on how to indeed diversify our economy, We have abundant of mineral resources untapped all over the country in commercial quantity and most importantly Distinguished Colleagues our laws and policy need to be reviewed to attract foreign investors that will invest into our solid minerals sector in particular, but looking at this year budget, I'm left in doubt to believe that this present Government is serious with the idea to diversify Nigeria economy as prophesied in the area of solid minerals considering the lean budget for the sector. This sector need huge  amount of money to be invested  in area of geological survey and all other useful data’s and information’s that can always be available for interested investors before it can generate substantial revenue for the government in the long run.
The new development in Ajaokuta Steel Industry is a good news and also a positive development towards sustainable growth.

Distinguished Colleagues, I want to submit with this  observation that federal government should dwell much on infrastructure concessioning  e.g. Our four major Airports in this country are not generating enough revenue for the Government and this can be improve upon through concession arrangement and some of these infrastructures can be upgraded into a world class standard, instead of this present administration to embark on the sales of our National Assets, the government should embrace concession idea.

The palliative measure by the present Government should take off immediately and all the bureaucracy bottle neck should be eliminated with immediate effect, so people can enjoy the benefit, the sooner the better. The Executive Economy team needs to be proactive and our monetary and fiscal policy should complement each other and the interest rate should be reviewed further down. A situation whereby the Minister of finance and CBN Governor are contradicting each other will erode little confident left on the economy by the investors, and that will not help our economy to grow.

I want to use this medium and thank Mr. President of the Senate for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this debate and commend my other colleagues for their fantastic contributions.

I personally have learnt a lot from various contributors.

Thank you all once again.