Former Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019 elections, Dr. Peter Obi, has suggested
to Federal Government to use one percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), as economic stimulus package for Nigerians against the
effect of coronavirus in the economy.
The former Anambra state governor said that such intervention would
help save millions of homes of poor and vulnerable people from crisis,
as well as small businesses which are the key drivers of the economy.
Obi, who was a guest on Channels television programme, Sunrise
Daily, on Wednesday, said the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria are the
asset of the country and, as such, they should be properly taken care of
irrespective of the situation.
He suggested to Federal Government adopt a more efficient and
effective way to reach out to these people with the economic stimulus
package for the next two or three months, and also come to their aide
with business revival fund at end of COVID-19 pandemic.
He said: “It’s not a rocket science. It doable. Countries of the
world that I know that have packaged economic stimulus for their people
spent not less than one percent of their GDP. In our case, our GDP is
$400 billion and spending one percent of it on our people as stimulus
package will definitely not collapse this country.
“We consistently borrow to finance infrastructure and other things,
the latest being over N20 billion. There’s absolutely nothing bad about
that. But the most important infrastructure is our people. They should
be alive and living in this critical period.
“If we can borrow over N20 billion for different infrastructures
which is critical and important for national development, then we should
be able to get $4 billion equivalent to attend to our people. If you
multiply $4b which is one percent of our GDP, it will give you N1.6
trillion and that should strictly be channeled to stimulus package for
our people.”
He thus asked government to quit complaining about non availability
of funds and source for money from anywhere to attend to basic needs of
the people.
“Many of our people have reached the limit of their
sacrifice. Some of these issues we are talking about were responsible
for French revolution and we should avoid it,” he advised.
He added: “At this point, you can’t discuss anything other than the
survival means of the people whether the money is there or not. People
are afraid of recession but that would hit the global economy after the
pandemic. Most important thing now is to save our peoples’ lives and
make sure that the poor and vulnerable amongst us live for tomorrow
because they are our asset and we need to protect them.
“I heard the Minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, days ago, talk
about how they would get money from Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to
augment disbursement to states in June, but she forgot that there are
many people who might not live up to June if nothing is done urgently.”
Obi challenged government to find a way to mobilise resources to
take care of vulnerable Nigerians, and in addition to that apologize to
Nigerians for not saving ‘yesterday’ and sincerely recommit to building
Nigeria like every other serious people are doing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment