FG Alerts Nigerians: 2016 Will Be Tough And Difficult

SAN FRANCISCO, December 12, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government yesterday alerted that next year is going to be a tough and difficult one as the country is faced with some fairly significant microeconomic challenges that require some fiscal house-keeping.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, at the opening of the 7th Annual Bankers Committee retreat in Lagos, where she stated that “It is going to be tough and we are going to have to make extremely tough decision. We have got the resilience and space to do that.”

Adeosun was however quick to point out that the country fortunately has some head-room, as the debt to GDP ratio is at 12 percent and that gives some space to run a deficit budget with the specific objective of stimulating the economy.

Stressing that the country needs to do some fiscal housekeeping in going about this, she said: “We have to control the significant challenge we have around recurrent.

“If you look at recurrent at a percentage of our total budget with the just approved supplementary budget, it is about 90 percent. If we continue in that trajectory, every penny we borrow will go into recurrent,” she added.

The minister, while expressing optimism that Nigeria can overcome the challenges, asserted that she was not attempting to whitewash everything or paint a rosy picture.