By Musa Baba Adamu
The federal government has blamed the immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari’s policy for the current inflationary rate in the country.
Answering questions from the members of the Senate Committee on Finance yesterday, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said the nation was reeling from fiscal policy choice of the past government.
He said: “the truth of the matter is that we printed money without commensurate production for eight years in this country. And this money were mostly taken by privilege few. This is the truth.”
On the disclosure by the Customs that about N3.8 trillion was lost to the grant of unmerited wavers last year, the Minister said the waivers were necessary in order to incentivice production, adding however that the government was about coming up with measures to cut down on the abuse.
He said when the new system is approved for implementation, beneficiaries of waivers would be required to pay up their duty first and then apply for waivers after being subjected to checks to ensure the beneficiary truly brought in his claim.
On the performance of the economy, he said the administration had done the hard part of the reform and that the country was already on its way to enjoying the reform.
He said while this was ongoing the government had been intervening by way of giving cash to Nigerians with proven identity such as the BVN and NIN to ensure that they are genuine, to cushion the effects of the reform.
He also said government was giving the main driver of production which is the Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) loans facility at nine percent.
On food security, he said the government had intervened in the area of providing fertilizer, grains and machinery to the farmers to boost food production.
Still on the intervention by the government, the Minister said the government had given directive for the release of the grains from food reserve.
The Committee is chaired by Senator Sani Musa.
