NIGERIANS, particularly those at the lowest and lower rungs of the social ladder in the country, are soon to begin to count their blessings as they would begin to enjoy the benefits of a social security scheme that can guarantee a basic livelihood as currently being enjoyed by their counterparts in developed nations across the world and oil -rich countries of the Middle East.

The Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, disclosed this plan Sunday at a press briefing at the end of this year’s Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank at the Headquarters of the Breton Woods Institutions in Washington, United States (U.S.).

The action stemmed from the dominant focus of this year’s meetings which was on shared prosperity and wealth redistribution as a potent means of ending extreme poverty among the nations of the world.

Okonjo-Iweala who spoke alongside the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Acting Governor, Dr. Sarah Alade, among other key officials, told journalists that the country has requested the two Breton Woods Institutions to assist Nigeria in the design of the social safety net which would provide social security for the country’s deprived population, a request which she said, has been acceded to and was being given the attention it deserves.

She also said the World Bank as part of efforts to assist Nigeria’s electricity challenge was investing $700 million in the transmission infrastructure to upscale the ability to guarantee improved power supply to boost Nigeria’s real sector as the largest economy in Africa.

Also, the minister disclosed that following the discovery of the huge potentials in the Nigerian economy as a result of the recent rebasing of her productive activities, investors at the meetings have continued to visit the Nigerian Country Office at the IMF/ World Bank office in Washington with one of them, Bluemberg Green, an agro-allied firm, already deciding to invest about $250 million in grains storage and logistics in the country.

The minister said: “Based on our own suggestion to the Fund that we want to have better quality growth, that is growth that creates the jobs that we need and that would cater for the needs of the ordinary people, the Fund and the bank actually are looking at this issue and trying to put forward some assistance.   The bank for instance is looking at how to support us with building a social protective programme that can take care of those at the bottom end of the ladder. And it is interesting to know that so many other countries are asking for the same and the Fund has shared some suggestions on what we might be able to do in other to create jobs and ensure this social security. There is publication by the bank already on job creation and employment.

“The whole World Bank Group is also supporting us on the whole energy front. The IFC is investing in Azura and they are also supporting transmission by putting a lot of money. They are offering us $700 million for transmission. Infrastructure is what they are focusing on in Nigeria on health, water and on those areas they feel would assist to upgrade infrastructure.

“For us, I think we came in to the Spring Meetings strong because we just rebased our GDP and this is very strongly accepted and looked upon, particularly that these institutions themselves participated in the exercise and in the quality control.  The fact that Nigeria now has a better GDP and the base is stronger elicited a lot of interest among participants here. Even some private sector people have come to say they are interested in investing in Nigeria. One of them is Blumberg Green. They have already sent a team to Nigeria and they are meeting with the Minister of Agriculture. They want to make Nigeria the hub for grain storage and distribution in Africa. They want to invest $250 million. The fact that we have the largest economy is making them to decide that this should be the place to place their hub in the continent. They were looking at all the countries to see where they could place their hub. That’s just an example is interest that has been elicited by the recent rebasing of our GDP,” the minister declared.

Commenting on the recently passed 2014  fiscal plan by the two chambers of the National Assembly, Okonjo-Iweala declared that though they haven’t analysed the budget as passed, but that a cursory look at it from reports has indicated that jerking up of the spending plan by the National Assembly has widened its funding gap from 1.9 per cent as projected by the executive to 2.01 per cent.

In a related development, the minister said the African Finance Ministers have requested from the IMF/World Bank to assist the continent to stop the continuous fleecing of African resources by multinationals who would not want to pay their taxes commitment and other forms of thievery indulged by them while doing businesses in Africa.

According to her: “We also requested as a group of African Countries that the World Bank and the IMF look at the problem of illicit flows and we have persisted in this demand because African Finance Ministers as a whole convened a panel chaired by former President Thabo Mbeki which showed that almost $50 billion is disappearing from the Continent; then we asked the World Bank and the IMF to help us look at the receiving countries and the routes that these monies are going.”

How are they going, through taxes? Those countries that should be paying taxes are finding very good ways of evading taxes.”

2014-04-14