The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, has indicated that 2016 shall be a tough year for Nigeria and that the Federal Government will make extremely tough decisions in the year.
Speaking at the opening of the 7th Annual Bankers Committee retreat yesterday in Lagos, Adeosun noted that Nigeria was faced with some fairly significant micro-economic challenges that required some fiscal house-keeping.
“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,” she said.
According to her, 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.
“To do so, we need to do some fiscal housekeeping. 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 said.
This lady doesn’t look like someone in her late 40’s. Always looking worse for wear. Just thinking aloud.