The Senate said that the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, had to appear before it before members proceed on recess.
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Commenting on Adeosun’s absence, Ali Ndume, senate leader, said she had sent a message notifying the senators of her inability to appear as scheduled, owing to the federal executive council meeting.
She announced that so far, N247.9 billion has been released for capital projects out of which, N22 billion is for transport and N21.9 billion for agriculture.
“The releases are fully cash backed; we have stopped the practice of releasing or approving releases that are not cash backing”.
The Minister, however, told the Senators that the recession would be a very short one because the government had measures to reverse the trend.
Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance, on Thursday told the Senate that Nigeria’s economy is “technically” in recession going by the two digit inflation rates and other negative indices on ground.
The Nigerian economy will weather the current economic crisis, Adeosun said.
Adeosun said, “Technically. If you go into two quarters of negative growth, technically you are in recession”. “I think if we are in a recession … we will begin to turn the corner by the third quarter”. All the things we are doing are consistent with what we had said we would do, which is get this economy moving again in a way that is sustainable and in a way that doesn’t rely completely on oil. We are not the only country in recession. “I think we need to be confident around what we are doing and where we are going”, she told a Senate committee hearing in Abuja.
Nigeria’s economy has been squeezed due to the global fall in oil prices combined with a resurgence of militant attacks on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta, which have limited production.
“Agriculture, which is the strategic focus of this government has received N22 billion compared to just N4 billion the whole of a year ago”.
“I hope she will make it today or tomorrow because these are issues that are very important to Nigerians”. International Monetary Fund has given their projections which is we may continue into negative territory and I am not sure what we have seen suggests that. “I’m not sure that what we are seeing suggests that”.
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“We inherited significant contractual arrears”. Cash calls of $5 billion outstanding to the oil companies.
