New Telegraph

Nigeria’ll collapse if FG stops borrowing – Utazi

  • Police reform must address issue of welfare

 

Senator Chukwuka Utazi represents Enugu North Senatorial District in the Senate. He is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Primary Healthcare and Communicable Diseases. In this interview with CHUKWU DAVID, he speaks on the 2021 budget, Federal Government’s borrowing, state of the economy and the recent #EndSARS protests, among others

 

The 2021 budget is currently before the National Assembly for consideration and passage. How do you see the content of the fiscal document?

 

I want to say that if there is anything anybody wants to take away from this budget, it is the acceptance by the Federal Government that things are not okay. In previous budgets, we have been battling that things were okay; that people were misrepresenting reality, but in this budget, Mr. President came out and told the whole country that we are in for a high jump in terms of recession that is pending.

 

He said it there in clear terms, and accepted that the situation is worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic that has made the income generation they had expected previously from the 2020, and necessitated the rework of the 2020 budget, which we did in July because the one we did last year didn’t work.

 

So, with the pandemic, we had no option than to go back and get the 2020 budget and rework it entirely to fall in line with the present realities in Nigeria, where we are not having income. Our crude was taken overseas and couldn’t even sell.

 

Even bringing the crude back was a big challenge. Most of our crude was stocked in empty tanks pending when there will be markets for such products. That was the situation we went through in the first six months of the year.

 

With all those issues, it is very clear to everybody that we are in for the worst of times if we do not start thinking critically, change     our habits, change everything we are going to do, a total overhaul in terms of the budget expenditures, the budget headings and others. So, we really need to do something drastic in order to remain afloat.

 

What is the way out of the messy economic situation?

 

I am of the opinion that since we have been having deficit budget for a long time now, we have to free several activities that take greater chunk of our budget and allow the private sector to take care of all that.

 

What do I mean, I am of the opinion that federal roads done by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing that can generate income for any would be investor should be struck out from the budget cycle of the Federal Government.

 

Those things should go to the private sector. The private sector should do the toll gates, make their money and return the project to the Federal Government after recouping their money they used to build the project.

 

That means returning to build, operate and transfer, that the Federal Government has been doing in the past. I want them to do that; and once they start doing that, you free a lot of funds that can be used in areas that are not as attractive to the private investors such as the areas I mentioned already. With such money, you can go into health and education and other critical areas of the economy such as agriculture, so that people can go there by themselves and stabilize the polity.

 

The Federal Government has borrowed so much money for the rail sector. Don’t you think that concession arrangement would have been better   for the country in this area?

 

Yes, the Federal Ministry of Transportation is another area that should be critically considered. We have borrowed so much money from China to do railways in all parts of the country. These are some of the things we should engage the Chinese themselves; let them take over. Why do we take the burden of getting the loan from the Chinese and then get them to do the job. Why don’t we concession those rail lines to the Chinese or any other part of the world that can do such projects to take over.

 

If they can build those infrastructures and manage them for 20 or 30 years years, let them do so. Let them collect the money they invested and then return the infrastructure to the country. If the government is not ready to run, then allow them to operate those things on behalf of the Federal Government.

 

This is not a new thing; it is done the world over. If you go to the United Kingdom, you go to the United States (U.S.) or France and other countries, all those things are concessioned.

 

So, why can’t we learn from them? Instead of taking it upon ourselves to do that and then tie the funds, they do it themselves and recoup their money. If we can free the so much money we are borrowing to fund these capital projects in terms of the railway transportation and road transportation, we can have a lot of money to develop other sectors of the economy. For instance, from Abuja to Kaduna or Kano either by road or rail is a major revenue earner because it is very busy.

 

From there, you can even get to Niger Republic and Chad as well as other others. So, why don’t we concession these things to the  private sector and then let them do that? The same thing applies to from Onitsha to Lagos; Lagos- Ibdan; Onitsha to Enugu and then Port Harcourt.

 

These are areas you know that you have high vehicular movement. You can allow the private sector to build their toll gates in these areas, make their money and then return the investment to the government. If you do this, you have so much money to get into education and health. There are areas you cannot concession out because of their importance. What we saw in this pandemic is an eye opener to all of us; that drastic actions have to be taken in the area of health management of this country.

 

Again, we need to move to agriculture now that we are looking for non-oil exports because the only way we can get our balance of trade is to start exporting. And the area you can do that is in agriculture. Once we do that, we will be selfsufficient. If we are self-sufficient in agriculture, then there is food security in the country. If we start doing those things, we bridge the disparity in the Naira- Dollar ratio in the country.

 

That’s the only way we can achieve that. Then people are doing some other businesses, who are importing certain other items to add in value chain to produce goods and services will now heave a sigh of relief.

 

But the way things are moving today, nobody knows what happens next. Things are really topsy-turvy and we cannot continue like that as a nation.

 

Another area we can explore is mining. We are hearing several people saying one thing or the other. Last time, the governor of Zamfara State was trying to enter into business with different companies. The question that comes to mind of most Nigerians is: Do we have two ways of doing things for one country?

 

If you say that the oil resources produced in the Niger Delta are owned by the federation, what about those who have other mineral resources; are those ones belonging to them? We have to look at all these things and get things done properly, so that we can harmonize.

 

The gold in Zamfara and other mineral resources in the northern part of the country, let’s also see how we can harness and make money from them and balance our trade. These are the things we need to do in order ensure that things work.

 

Why is it that Nigeria’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is not sufficient to help support the economy by funding the budget, a situation that leads to excessive borrowing by the federal and state governments?

 

We all know that we have leakages in our IGR. These leakages have to be blocked properly because most of the revenues we generate don’t come to the Federation Account;   they enter into private pockets.

 

We must get serious minded people to man these areas so as to get these leakages blocked. If we block the leakages, we have more money for the federation in terms of what you distribute to the states and the local government areas, and what is left for the Federal Government to also look at the projects that it is handling. No matter how anybody wants to look at the borrowing, the truth is that if you don’t borrow, this country will collapse. That’s just the truth.

 

There is no shortcut to it. If you say you don’t borrow, the country will collapse because the kind of money you make from crude oil sales and spend is not just like the money you have taken last August, and you put into the coffers. It doesn’t come that way.

 

It comes in after six months of sales. Why we were able to manage to pay salaries during the COVID-19 lockdown was as a result of the revenue from oil sales we made last year, when that one started trickling into the Federation Account, we were solving our problems.

 

But now, there is none. From January to now, there is none. It is not just if you go to the market and sell and you start coming back. That’s the thinking of the average Nigerian but it’s not so. It is what you sold in the last six months that will start coming in. We have exhausted what we earned last year. Now, we don’t have anything.

 

So, if you say that Nigeria is borrowing too much; you can’t stop borrowing, else the country will collapse. But the question is: What do you use the money for? That’s why I am saying that instead of borrowing the money and putting it in the railway construction by the Federal Ministry of Transport, let us borrow this money and do other things.

 

The projects that our lenders are also interested in, you ask them to come over and build. Give it to the person that has a better option. Let him come and build because Nigeria is a huge business.

 

If you go the world over, you see that rail transportation is everything. It is a major revenue earner for any country. So, let’s concession this thing to the private sector, so that they can do it and manage it for a certain number of years as you agree with them. The money we now borrow will be invested in other critical areas to stabilize our country.

 

If you concession the rail projects and the federal roads that are going to be profitable, you will discover that you are going to save huge money. Then, we can borrow to build our health infrastructure; and look at how we can modernize agriculture, so that it will not be subsistent farming again.

 

These are the areas we should be looking at so that we can make enough revenue for the country, and before you know it, the borrowing will no longer be huge on the economy, and we will no longer be spending much money in servicing all these debts. If you look at the 2021 budget, almost 25 per cent of the budget is going to be spent on servicing debts. How do you do that and survive?

 

These are the issues that we have to sit up and look at.

 

 

Following the recent #EndSARS protest that rocked the country, the  Federal Government disbanded this important unit of the Nigeria Police Force. Don’t you think that reforming the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) would have been more beneficial than outright disbandment?

 

I think we are just being semantic about the issue of SARS and being semantic will not solve any problem. Whether we call it dissolve or reform, the issue is that you are dealing with Nigerians. No matter the approach you adopt, that’s not the issue.

 

The issue is that you should make sure that things work for our people because there are several issues that are at the background that affect these issues. The background is that if you have a workforce and you don’t pay them very well, and you give them arms, there is the tendency that it is going to be abused.

 

So, we have to look at what is the correct wage bill for our men in uniform. It is not just for the people in uniform, it should also be across board. We have to look at these things properly and determine the take home pay that can work for our country.

 

Once you achieve this, you will see a lot of things fall in line. When the wage bill is not enough to take home anybody, the tendency is that people will look the other way and try to find out how they can make up and solve their problems.

 

 

This issue of wrong payment is one of the fallouts   colonial administration but it should not be so now because we are self-governing, and if we are self-governing, we must make sure that we do the correct thing.

 

Nobody is supervising us now; we are supervising ourselves, so that system should not be again. We should be looking at how to make our system a credit system. What I mean is that, if I want to buy a car, I don’t need to have the whole money before I buy a car. Once I am working and have a steady means of income, I can have a car and pay gradually over a period of five or 10 years. You don’t need to have the whole money to build a house; I can enter into agreement and buy a house and go into mortgage. If I could not finish the payment, then my children will pay. Any time they are no more interested, they can return it to the market and recoup their money.

 

These are the issues that put pressure on the Nigerian workers. If you do not do that, you are not doing well. In the health system, you have to have health insurance. These are the schemes that help the developed economies to do well. Until we get to that, we will just be looking at the effect instead of addressing the cause of our problems, which is just like cutting a weed from the top and the roots are still deep in the ground, so that by the time the one you cut from the top dries, the root can still bring up fresh grass again that will be there.

 

So, we must uproot the problem and the solution is to get to the cause and not the effect. So, whether it is SARS, the Police or the Army, if you don’t pay them well and you give them arms, they will use it for themselves. So, any reform or dissolution will yield no result because they are not well paid. It is after you have solved this fundamental problem of poor payment that you can start talking about addressing the greed of the very few, and it will be easy for you to manage the greed.

 

You can effectively address that since you know that you have done the wage bill that is reasonable. If you see any officer who is misbehaving, you can descend on the person, and everybody in the system will turn against that person. But when you have not done it, you have the whole people to contend with, and it will overwhelm the system and things will not work well for our country. So, we have to do all these things and ensure that things work for our people; if we don’t, well God bless us.

 

 

Who has the burden of providing this solution you are talking about; what kind of solution are we looking at; is it executive solution or legislative or both? Put in another way, is it by executive order or by acts of parliament that will do the magic?

 

It can come by executive order or acts of parliament. It can come one way or the other way but fundamentally, it is the duty of the executive to provide leadership. If they bring such proposition to the National Assembly, we can give legislative effect to such executive thinking or policies. That is what it should be.

 

That does not preclude us from doing things because there are certain things we have done. For instance, I brought a bill on the power problem in the country. It is not an executive bill but today, it is yielding fruits.

 

When you wait and things are not forthcoming, you do things yourself. So, when I waited and it appeared that nothing was working, I brought a ground-shaking motion here on the power problems in the country, which made us to go into the power roundtable at the Nigeria Air Force Media Centre, Abuja, and the Senate Committee on Power, led by Senator Gabriel Suswam, has been on it. And now, they are sponsoring a bill to holistically address such issues.

 

So, we have taken a legislative initiative. When I saw that nothing was forthcoming from the executive, I delved into the matter, to prompt the executive into action.

 

So, the solution can come from the executive or from the legislature or both because governance is a collective responsibility. The only thing is, let us have an understanding, which at the end of the day is good for the country.

 

 

Read Previous

Mercedes aiming to start Hamilton contract talks in days

Read Next

Olawepo-Hashim pays tribute to Rawlings, Musa

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *