Mr. Tope Fasua, an economist is the presidential candidate of the
Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) . In this interview with AYODELE
AJANI in Abuja he speaks on the 2019 budget .
Excerpts:
President Muhammadu Buhari recently presented the 2019 budget to the
National Assembly. The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki has
described the budget as a hopeless document and that Nigerians should
not expect anything from the budget. As an economist, how do you see
the budget?
It is actually a hopeless budget. You know, I personally have been on
the street three times demonstrating against that budget and the
entire concept of budgeting in Nigeria. There is absolutely nothing
in the budget for our poor people and the majority of Nigerians. The
budget is just queued to continue with the waste and the benefits of
office for the few people who found themselves in positions – the
appointees, the political leaders as well as the top civil servants.
They are the only ones who can benefit from that budget. We have
always been on this case that we should not be doing anything less
than N16 trillions in Nigeria by way of budget because of several
angles. Number one, I look at the budget per capital around the world,
Nigeria has perhaps the second lowest which is just a little bit
better than that of Democratic Republic of Congo I look at Budget as
a percentage of the GDP; Nigeria has the lowest in the World. Meaning
that we have a big GDP so to speak, but we are budgeting for our
people as if they are ants. So if you look at the components of this
N8.83 trillions budget, even debt servicing is taking 35 per cent,
where we cannot find 30 per cent for capital projects. The economy is
broken, if Nigerians want it to be like this and they want more of
this, then we deserve what we get. This government has borrowed a lot
of money, which is now reflecting in more provision for debt
servicing. They said the economy is broken, and we have financial
crisis, the Director –General Budget was there with some MDAs some
days ago saying Nigeria is in financial crisis, that we spent
N40trillion on our parastatals , government owned enterprises but
that when we need them to support us for revenue, they are never
doing that. He said that few of them declared surpluses and that they
were owing N2.8 trillions this year. And he mentioned them , NIMASSA,
NPA, CBN, PPPRA. Then you begin to wonder how have they been able to
side step the TSA with their income. So there is lot of problems
in this country. The president himself recently said Nigeria is in
trouble. That there is an economic crisis and that it is going to be
worse this year. So that is what we are looking at right now and I
am actually on the side of the Senate President on that statement
that this is a hopeless budget. This budget is a budget of hunger,
more hunger and crisis. But let me tell you when the trouble come,
Nigerians should knows the home and addresses of those who have stolen
their money and kept them in this scenario that is going on.
The PDP Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said the economy
is like the way it is presently because there are no economists in
Buhari’s cabinet. How will you react to this?
It is part of the problems. I am an economist but certainly there is
no economist in the Buhari’s cabinet. A lawyer is running your Budget
and Planning Ministry. The woman in charge of Finance, I don’t know
what she studied but she is not an economist. She is an Accountant
under ANAN, you can see she is not strong. So we have a lot of these
people all over the place. A Lawyer is running your Power Ministry,
Works Ministry, your Housing Ministry. Now let me say what it takes to
be an economist. It is not only those who go to the school to study
economics that can be economist, it is about the way you think. And I
know many of those who go to school to study economics to PHD level
who are not economist. This is because economics is about the way you
think. An Economist thinks for everybody and this include every
variable. You have to continue to work in a very broad manner; you
need to expand your minds as an economist. We were here complaining
that Kemi Adeosun was borrowing too much money; they did not listen to
what we have to say. Now they are complaining that there are too much
debt servicing, there is too much debt, 76million dollars, very soon
perhaps we will be talking about 80m dollars. We never owed that kind
of money before. If Nigerians like let them not listen to some of us,
but we will say what we have to say. What is going on in this country
is totally unacceptable, it is criminal and these people have
collapsed the economy finally. It is surprising that it is Buhari’s
government that will collapse the economy. Who would have imagined
that? Now we are making N5.3 trillion in FIRS, N 1.1 trillion in
Customs and look at us we are still broke. We made so much money, we
borrowed more money to supplement it and we are still broke. So, it
is beyond a matter of who is an economist and who is not an
economist. We have people who don’t have ideas of what to do with the
time they have.
Former Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Ayodele Fayose even said the
admission by the president that the economy is bad and that tougher
days are ahead is an indictment on him as president. What is your
position on this?
Yes, Buhari should be resigning now even before the election. In my
view Buhari should resign before the election, because the statement
on the economy is an indictment on him. That was why when he was
presenting the budget, they were booing him, it never happened before,
even under Jonathan. That the president would be presenting the budget
and the legislators would be saying you are lying, iro lo pa in
Yoruba. Can you imagine? The man has totally lost respect in this
country. The seat of the president has become a joke because we have a
lethargic man who unfortunately some of us trusted that he would be
able to bail out this country. We said he was reputed for his
discipline and frugality and all of that, which has turned out to be a
myth. Within his own time, they have added 30 billion dollars to the
foreign loan. That is in the last four years. What did they do with
that money? This is what people should be asking. This is because
what they did was that they devalued the currency, the value of our
domestic loan went down. You can’t collect 30billion dollars as loans
and said FIRS generated money, Customs generated money and all of a
sudden, we can’t find the money. What has happened to the money? And
now we are saying that we are broke.
