Osinbajo: FG spent N1.3tn on capital projects

VICE PRESIDENT Yemi
Osinbajo said on Monday that
the Buhari administration
spent N1.3 trillion on capital
projects in 2016, the highest
in the history of the country.
Osinbajo disclosed this at a
plenary of the 2017 Nigerian
Bar Association national
conference in Lagos with the
theme: “African Business:
Penetrating Through
Institution Building.”
The sub-theme of the
plenary was “Conversations
With The Vice President”,
moderated by Zain Asher,
a CNN news anchor. “The
Federal Government spent
about N1.3tn on capital
projects in 2016, the highest
in the history of the country.
“The power sector reform is
also ongoing as it is one of
the most important sectors in
the country,” Osinbajo said.
Responding to Asher’s
questions, Osinbajo said
the administration had set
a solid foundation for the
nation’s economic recovery
which, he described, as the most important reform of the
administration. He said, “We
were dealing with a monoeconomy
(relying on one major
export or natural resource) and
a financial industry that was
essentially opaque.
“We have set a foundation
of rebuilding the economy,
creating the Single Treasury
Account, monitoring
government’s spending,
modifying the tax system
to be more efficient and
implementing executive
orders.”
According to the vicepresident,
the administration
has also cleared what
he described as a mess
inherited from the previous
administration. On whether
poor Nigerians in the rural
areas have felt the impact of
the reforms, Osinbajo said
diversification into agriculture
had been embraced in most
northern states with a lot of
transformation.
“For the economy, we are
going to see a tripling in the
harvesting of rice, prosperit Kebbi and Zamfara. “The rural
areas where the highest level of
poverty is experienced, there
is a turnaround as the highest
number of people who went
for 2017 hajj were farmers.
“There is a lot of export of
agricultural products, what we
need to do is to engage in more
value-added exports and we
have quite a few investors.” He
noted that agricultural sector
had witnessed hi-tech farming
and investments with more
people taking to farming.
The vice-president, who
also spoke on the efforts
of government in tackling
corruption and laundering
the country’s image, said,
“Government ownership
of business encourages
corruption. The more private
sector involvement in
businesses, the more efficient
the system will be and the less
corrupt the system will be.
“We are currently working
on a ‘one-government system’
to tackle bureaucracy. For
example, if you need five different approvals from five
government agencies, under
this system communication
with one agency is sufficient as
all the agencies will liaise with
one another.
“We have introduced
technology in a lot of processes.
For example, company
registration with the Corporate
Affairs Commission (CAC);
the less human contact, the
less incidences of corruption.
“We must punish offenders,
there must be consequences for
offenders, fighting corruption
is multi-sectoral and we have
to work together. “Convictions
on corruption cases have been
slow, from my experience as
a former prosecutor, getting
cases to court is slow, the system
allows a lot of inefficiencies.
“We have to try cases efficiently
and secure convictions
so people can see the
consequences of corruption.”
Osinbajo stressed the need
for collaboration among the
three arms of government to
make the reforms a success.
shipsandports.com.

Source: Nigeria pilots