The
Federal Government has come up with a contingency plan that involves
raising the targets of the key non-oil revenue agencies for next fiscal
year in order to insulate the economy against the fall in the prices oil
in the international market.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday during a press briefing.
The
minster said the plan involved an increase in the revenue benchmark
targets for both the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria
Customs Service.
Okonjo-Iweala also
announced that the government had invited the Independent Corrupt
Practices and other related Offences Tribunal to investigate and
prosecute 60,000 ghost workers and pensioners that had been weeded out
from the government payroll.
The
minster, who did not disclose the new revenue targets given to the
agencies for next year, said the FIRS had realised N44bn out of N75bn
initial target, while the Customs realised N713bn between January and
September out of its initial N1.23tn target.
She
said, “We must shift the economy to non-oil revenue and we are already
working hard on non-oil. Our revenue to GDP ratio is below that of other
countries. We need to work very hard on non-oil and deliver on the
non-oil sector.
“The global economy
is volatile, oil prices are falling and as a matter of priority, we are
developing a contingency plan to bring stability to the economy.”
Okonjo-Iweala
said the present administration was doing a lot to enthrone
transparency in the public service, adding that the commitment led to
expulsion of the ghost workers from the payroll across the Ministries,
Departments and Agencies, which led to the saving of N160bn.
“Last
year, 60,000 ghost workers were weeded out, which saved government
about N160bn. The ministry wrote to the ICPC to trace those that needed
to be held accountable and we are ready to assist the ICPC on any issue
that borders on transparency,” she said.
She
said because the ministry lacked the power and resources for
investigation, the ICPC had been invited to investigate and prosecute
public officials that might have been involved in the criminal act.
“We
have handed over the matter to the ICPC to investigate those that are
culpable and prosecute them. We are ready to give them the information
that we have,” she added.
Given some
economic indicators, the minister said the country’s External Reserves
had risen from $36.6bn in June to $39.48bn as of October 16.
She put Excess Crude Account balance at $4.11bn and the Sovereign Wealth Fund at $1.55bn.
Okonjo-Iweala
also said the economy had enjoyed good measure of stability as key
indices such as inflation, exchange rate and other instruments had been
stable, a situation that had allowed investors to plan.
“The
President has delivered on steady macro economy for this country, but
the oil price has come down but it is not beyond our capacity to deal
with and we are dealing with it by diversifying the economy,” she added.
The
Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority,
Mr. Uche Orji, said the Sovereign Wealth Fund investment programme over
the next six months would go ahead, even as its capital base was being
hit by falling oil prices.
He said one of the SWF’s core aims was to manage oil export windfalls to cushion the economy in harder times.
“The
oil price; yes, it has come down. But frankly, let’s not forget why
this fund was set up. It was to prepare us for days like this,” he told
Reuters on the sidelines of an African investment conference in London
on Tuesday.
Orji conceded that
weakness in the international oil market would affect the fund but he
remained focused on deploying existing assets to investment in
infrastructure projects in sectors such as transport, power and health
care.
“Obviously, we get funded from
the oil price; so, if it’s lower, it will affect us. But our plan in the
next six months is to fully deploy what we’ve been given. We still
haven’t fully deployed our capital yet,” he said.