Lawmaker Says Govt Is ‘A Bad Manager’

A lawmaker, Wole Oke, has described the Nigerian government as a “bad manager, adding that it cannot “run businesses effectively”, necessitating the selling of assets to fund the 2021 budget.

The lawmaker who represents Oriade/Obokun, Osun State, while on Channels TV, said that the assets that are being sold off by the government are better of sold because they are “already liabilities.”

He described the government as a bad manager, asking if there was any business that the government ran well.

Oke said, “The issue of the sale of assets is not new. Even in the previous budgets, there have always been other sources of revenue and the sales of assets is one of such.

“But the critical issue we need to look at, is ‘What assets are we selling?’ Some assets are already liabilities, so what are we keeping them for? That is my humble opinion.

“You have to tell us which assets we are looking at. It is a common saying, which I also believe in, that the government is a bad manager.

“Which business has the government ran and ran it very well?”

SERAP’s Admonition

Oke’s comments follow the admonition of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, asking that they “urgently review the 2021 appropriation legislation to stop the government of President Muhammadu Buhari from selling public properties to fund the 2021 budget, and to identify areas in the budget to cut such as salaries and allowances for members and the Presidency to make sayings to address the growing level of deficit and borrowing.”

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Acording to the group, “Selling valuable public properties to fund the 2021 budget would be counter-productive, as this would be vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement. It would undermine the social contract with Nigerians, leave the government worse off, and hurt the country in the long run. It is neither necessary nor in the public interest.

“The country’s fiscal situation must be changed – and changed quickly – through some combination of cuts in spending on salaries and allowances, and a freeze on spending in certain areas of the budget such as hardship and furniture allowances, entertainment allowances, international travels, and buying of motor vehicles and utilities for members and the Presidency.”

President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the 2021 budget of N13.5 trillion late last year with a deficit of N5.20 trillion.

It was also announced that some assets belonging to the government would be sold off to fill the budget deficit.