By Golok Nanmwa, Jos
President Muhammadu Buhari at the weekend said his administration would continue to address problems confronting the county.
He also reiterated that what the present administration met as far as the economy was concerned was an economy in a shambles as a result of widespread corruption and mismanagement of the national commonwealth, compounded by a sharp drop in the prices of oil.
Buhari who was represented at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) graduation of Senior Executive Course 40, by the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali in Jos said that what his government inherited was an empty treasury, depleted foreign reserves, poor and dilapidated infrastructure, huge capital and current liabilities, food import dependency, long-standing insurgency, myriads of internal security challenges and a situation where whereby many state governments owed their workers salaries.
According to him, good governance involves transparency and prudence in public finance, social justice, investing in the poor and creating employment for the youth.
“When we assumed leadership in 2015, what we met was an economy in a shambles as a result of widespread corruption and mismanagement of the national common-wealth, compounded by a sharp drop in the prices of oil.
“Indeed, we inherited an empty treasury, depleted foreign reserves, poor and dilapidated infrastructure, huge capital and current liabilities, food import dependency, long-standing insurgency, myriads of internal security challenges, and a situation whereby many state governments owed their workers’ salaries. To make matters worse, the economy also went into a recession.”
“These inherited circumstances put us under extreme difficulty, particularly when measured against the expectations of Nigerians who voted for us expecting a better governance. We had to develop and implement some policies that would quickly get us out of this unsavory situation.
“To address the problems fundamentally, we put in place several policy frameworks, the major one being the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which laid out the strategy for achieving the government’s vision of sustained and inclusive growth. The ERGP provided the framework for short-term recovery and structural reforms aimed at diversifying the economy to set it on a path of sustainable growth over the medium and long-term. We took further measures including the Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business to address identified bottlenecks.
