November 14, 2024

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By Kazeem Ugbodaga

President Bola Tinubu on Sunday morning reeled out what his government has been doing in the last 14 months to revive the nation’s ailing economy.

The president, in a broadcast on the nationwide strike, said in the past 14 months, his government has made significant strides in rebuilding the foundation of the economy to carry the people into a future of plenty and abundance.

On the fiscal side, Tinubu disclosed that aggregate government revenues had more than doubled, hitting over N9.1 trillion in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023 due to the government’s efforts at blocking leakages, introducing automation, and mobilising funding creatively without additional burden on the people.

The president said productivity is gradually increasing in the non-oil sector, reaching new levels and taking advantage of the opportunities in the current economic ambience, saying that coming from a place where the country spent 97% of all its revenue on debt service; his government had been able to reduce that to 68% in the last 13 months.

“We have also cleared legitimate outstanding foreign exchange obligations of about $5 billion without any adverse impact on our programmes. This has given us more financial freedom and the room to spend more money on you, our citizens, to fund essential social services like education and healthcare. It has also led to our State, and Local Governments receiving the highest allocations ever in our country’s history from the Federation Account,” he said,

Tinubu added that his government had also embarked on major infrastructure projects across the country and working to complete inherited projects critical to the nation’s economic prosperity, including roads, bridges, railways, power, and oil and gas developments.

“Notably, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Highway projects will open up 16 connecting states, creating thousands of jobs and boosting economic output through trade, tourism and cultural integration

“Our once-declining oil and gas industry is experiencing a resurgence on the back of the reforms I announced in May 2024 to address the gaps in the Petroleum Industry Act. Last month, we increased our oil production to 1.61 million barrels per day, and our gas assets are receiving the attention they deserve. Investors are coming back, and we have already seen two Foreign Direct Investments signed of over half a billion dollars since then,” he said.

Tinubu stated that Nigeria had been dependent solely on oil-based petrol, neglecting its gas resources to power the economy, saying that “We were also using our hard-earned foreign exchange to pay for, and subsidise its use.

“To address this, we immediately launched our Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (CNG) to power our transportation economy and bring costs down. This will save over two trillion Naira a month, being used to import PMS and AGO and free up our resources for more investment in healthcare and education.

“To this end, we will be distributing a million kits of extremely low or no cost to commercial vehicles that transport people and goods and who currently consume 80% of the imported PMS and AGO.”

According to him, “We have started the distribution of conversion kits and setting up of conversion centres across the country in conjunction with the private sector. We believe that this CNG initiative will reduce transportation costs by approximately 60 per cent and help to curb inflation.

“Our administration has shown its commitment to the youth by setting up the student loan scheme. To date, 45.6billion Naira has already been processed for payment to students and their respective institutions”

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