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 mono-economy (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 vice-president, 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, prosperity is returning to some states like 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.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.
