ECONOMY AT A PRECIPICE.Part 2

                            

What baffles most a salient mind is the level of kleptocracy embedded in the system  and the periodical pile up of huge stock of naira continuously  mopped up with double digit interest rates with fear of inflation and the propensity to borrow at high interest  to fund alleged budget deficit ..Today ,the cry of government  is broke is common nowadays in Aso Villa .

There is so much fraud going on in government  circles than we hardly know .In the P.M. News article written last year  by Femi Falana the jurist lamented the following -;

----the excess crude account reserve account -ECA over 20billion dollars was wiped out .Then it began to build up closing almost 10 billion dollars at a point and later reduced to less than 5billion dollars .I quite aggree with this fact.

----About 2.3 trillion naira was wiped out by subsidy .This cannot be far from the truth as it has become annual scourge in government circles .

----Not less than 3 trillion naira was pumped to salvage banks .Infact figures by Henry Boyo put it at 5.7 trillion naira for the rescue of banks from toxic assets assumed by AMCON.No concrete results so far .because these Banks were later nationalised  prior to being taken over by new investors .

----About 4.4trillion naira stolen by MDAs and Nuhu Ribadu led petroleum task force report uncovered $50billion .in the NNPC account .

In the 2013  reports by Sahara reporters ,the Governor of CBN Lamido Sanusi Lamido accused NNPC of failing to remit the whooping sum 49.8b. to the federation account about 8 trillion naira.Punch also on December 11,2013,pg.13.]had similar publication including The Nation -Dec.13,2013 ,pg.4].In this particular edition by The Nation the front editorial reads;Contoversial Enfanterible Governor Amaechi Interrogated Mr President On the missing money .These funds were not remitted to the federation account between January 2012 to July 2012.This was revealed in a letter unveiled by the CBN Governor provided the basis for this argument .It was later debunked by the NNPC which blamed the failure of Sanusi on the understanding of how oil and gas system or its industry operates .The amount was later reduced to slightly above 10 billion dollars  and consumed by subsidy fraud .

Startling evidences and unprecedented revelation  are slowly coming to light about the monumental fraud being perpetrated by this goverment at an unprecedented heights breaking every previous records combined..According to Premium Times the nation s no 1 investigative journalism portal --the illegal diversion of 58.9 trillion naira .from four oil blocks under so called Atlantic Energy drilling concept over the last four years midwiwed by minister of petrolum D.Madueke  and Presidential fuguemen -kola Aluko and Jide Omokore .Indeed a monumental age of fraud.A whooping 4 years of the nation s revenue lost without a trace ..These men are loaded with  killer cash and hard currency buying the best and the richest  properties across the world worth of millions of dollars.Madueke was regarded as trillionaire with deadly cash ignoring the retribution to weigh the peril of kleptocracy against the country.

At a world economic forum in Davos British Prime Minister David Cameron lamented Nigeria earned a whooping over 100billion dollars from the sale of crude oil annually .An amount he noted was more than or exceeds all the development aids pumped into subsaharan Africa put together .He called for international action to help the country and save it from ruin .

                                     The Politics of Opposition And The Rancour of Niger Delta Polity

The enfanterible Governor had many bones to grind .As the chairman of the embattled Nigeria Governors Forum-NGF threw another bombshell at the second annual retreat of state chief executives that took place in Sokoto State ,he declared that $5billion was missing from excess crude account He criticized the decline of ECA which stood at 9billon dollars in January 2012 to abysmal low level recorded  on Novemeber 2013 without any trace .This buttressed and confirmed our earlier submission after the round of 20billion dollars was wiped out.

The state treasury is under monumental siege as petrodollars funds disappeared to western metropolis without trace.The improper remittances of the NNPC was not being subject to effective probe by the National Assembly  .According to allegation by the house of representatives crude oil sales between January to August 2013 by value stood at $20.7billion  but unfortunately a paltry 7 billion dollars was remitted while the remnant was siphoned from state treasury by Mr President stooges and cabal.

Likewise , the emergence of  Governor Seriake Dikson in Bayelsa State ,completely changed the economic  landscape of the Deltas and  the highest  level of fraud  been associated with this government was not only as a result of  hijacked  peace and stability of the Niger Delta but much more related to natural capital asset theft by Bayelsa and the political economic conflicts with Rivers states .Prior to this bickering they hitherto enjoyed cordial relationship promoting peace ,unity and social harmony among the NIger Deltans during the period.The moment Dickson mounted the saddle  the people of Rivers woke up one day  to discover a huge chunk of Rivers state -Soku oil wells and the Ndama  a total of 41 oil wells was no more and having manipulated the national boundary commission,ceded it to Bayelsa .  .Soku belong to kalabari kingdom for more than three hundreds old prior to the invasion and public theft .Before we can say jack Robinson ,the whole  South south was engulfed with war and crisis because of the grip, claim and clash of greed by Bayelsa over Soku wealth .When the people of Rivers state protested against the rogue state but the pledges  made by the president were never fulfilled  For instance the pledge to keep cummulative funds into an escrow account for Rivers was never fulfilled and these funds were later released to Bayelsa .Moreso as 5bilionnaira was deducted from Rivers states 19billion naira monthly allocation .Consequently this crisis became a party crisis as Governor Amaechi took the President to the cleaners and it became a national crisis.The irecocilliable differences led to the collapse of PDP as 7 PDP governors decamped to the opposition party.

With insensitive policies  the current dispensation had strengthened the opposition  indirectly probably to its own doom  and inordinately empowered the G7.It is improper to see war where there is none.

THE ECONOMY AT A PRECIPICE.Part 1

                                                                 

Managing governance and entrenching viable institutional framework is a critical challenge for governments and polities world wide .Nowadays in this part of the world economic fundamentals are not quite encouraging at all at their lowest ebb and quite simply at loggerheads with the yearning  of ordinary masses and the rational demand  of economic growth  and the progress of nation building in general.

Frankly speaking ,the profligacy of the present dispensation has reached its neplusustra begging for itself a self corrective action  and timely redress to avert the coming perdition .There can be no doubt that one of the lasting legacies of the present regime lies in the excessive accumulation of national debt .

When debt management office -DMOs opened its  office  in  2003 based on the strategic intent and goals of the institutions,it contributed immensely to succesfully helping the country in paying off  or rid off over 35 billion dollars external debt burden .Some debt paid off about 12 billion dollars was written was written off.Nigerians finally heave a sigh of relief when we  exit the Paris club our   erstwhile external debt profile stood below 4 billion dollars  .Domestic debt though tolerable as can be passed from sector to sector had  since ballooned to over 80billion dollars -about 13trilion naira today made up of 60 percent treasury bills and 24percent  treasury bonds .

Likewise external debt skyrocked to almost 7billion dollars today growing at alarming rate even with the attempt to borrow more another $9billion dollars by the current regimes -an irrational package tied to unproductive channels .All this was done without any critical impact on the public welfare and generality of the citizenry .

Over the period spanning 2006 -2013 ,there was rapid accumulation of tactless mounts of domestic debts at atrocious rates and moreso as billion dollars worth of huge pile up of forex savings lying idle in foregn reserves  .Persistent accumulation of domestic debts was estimated to grow by another  2.5trilion naira as foreign debt about to exceed over 7 billion dollars .Media critics have lamented ;why should borrow or prefer to borrow at exorbitant rates to fund alleged  annual budgetary deficits inspite of cummulative idle petrodollars reserves being managed by the CBN ?Domestic debt had been allowed to grow unfettered without judicious of such exorbitant exercise

DMOs and the CBN had been allowed too much space to structure fraud in the system,laden with reckless brigandage in which government was allowed to borrow its own money at calamitous interest rates of 17 percent from commercial banks even as  Banks according to directive leveraged on 50 percent of government deposits placed in their care .Consequently as domestic debt piled up ,government was condemned to borrow at penal rates and still earns a meagre less than 3 percent interest on its but rising ptrodollars reserves of 44billion dollars . 

As it is presently , annual budgetary deficits stood at over 500billion naira in the 2014-2016 MTEF,the possibility of domestic debt rising to 15 trillion naira had been proven by economists and media critics beyond reasonable .A sinking fund of 100billion naira is a child play in the face of mounting annual debt service charges of 600billion naira with possibility of growing to 92bilion dollars only speaks volume of monumental fraud and high level of government insensitivity over perennial economic decline.

How irrational it is borrow under a proven and questionable ghost deficit to fund alleged budgetary shortfalls even when findings have shown deficits cannot occur simultaneously at the same time with annual petrodollar revenue surplus flowing into excess crude account..Borrowing to fund presumed deficits even in the face of revenue above budget forecast above oil benchmark.similarly consumed in the same year cannot be exonerated from the fraudulent intents of pawn brokers in government.contd.