The Nigerian government has been advised to reign in on fiscal discipline and drastically cut the country’s huge cost of governance in order to exit recession.
Peter Obi, a former Governor of Anambra State and Vice Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election was a guest on ARISE News and said the government must ensure that policies and economic measures get to the intended targets.
“The 2016 exit was based more on reckless borrowing because I remember arguing with the minister then, he said he will borrow and spend his way out of recession and I said no you can’t do that because you are borrowing and throwing it at consumption.
“Now we are faced with where we cannot borrow as we did then. So what we need to do now is reign in on fiscal discipline, it is critical because today we still have a huge cost of governance, the fiscal side has to ensure that their policies and measures and everything gets to where it is directed.
“So if you say you’re spending this to support the SMEs, it must get there, right now it’s not getting there, right now we are not providing enough to be able to take our people out of recession,” Obi said.
According to the former governor, he said the country has to do something more radical to exit recession as there is a discordant tone between the fiscal and monetary side. There’s a need to do more especially on the fiscal side.
“Even the stimulus to come out of the recession, one is that it’s very low, two is that it’s not even getting to the places it needs to get to.”
By Abel Ejikeme