We are “Technically” in Recession – Min. of Finance Kemi Adeosun

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun today appeared before the Senate to brief the lawmakers on the Monetary/Fiscal Policies adopted by the nation.

According to the Senate’s Twitter handle, the minister said that Nigeria is technically on recession.

“Are we in recession? Technically, Yes, we are,” the senate quoted her as saying.

Read some points she made, as tweeted by the Senate:

Speaking on Federal government’s effort in diversifying the economy, Adeosun said:

We have spent N247.9Billion till date on Capital Expenditure.

We are working on the recapitalization of the Bank of Agriculture and we will come up with a plan in the next 30Days. Things are tough and We are not ignorant of that.

Our Revenues are looking well; FIRS and Customs are doing well in terms of this.

Nigeria is weathering the storm so far. We need the Public Procurement Law to be amended

Nigeria is weathering the storm so far. We need the Public Procurement and UBEC Laws to be amended.

I am not too worried about IMF projections

Everything in the Budget needs to be implemented… or else there’s no sense passing the budget.

We cannot begin to summersault when somebody from abroad says something or gives an opinion.

Nigerians should not panic. We are still the biggest economy in Africa and we will still get better.

We have widened the Internally generated revenue of all states. All Agricultural equipments are coming in on Zero duties”

Speaking on the subsidy situation, she said, “I can confirm that there is no more subsidy”

The violent activities in the Niger Delta affects revenue.

The fundamental thing needed to diversity the economy is infrastructure we are attacking the infrastructure deficits.

Our focus towards economic diversification is to bridge the infrastructural gap.

The previous administration was borrowing to pay salaries. We were taking panadol when we had cancer.

I disagree that we don’t have an economic management team.

We are not immune to the sufferings of Nigerians; it affects us all and we are doing all we can to assuage it.

This economic team stands for transparency & telling the truth even if the truth is not fine we will continue telling the truth”

She said that funds for the Rio Olympics are being released.

“I spoke with the Director of Finance of the Ministry of Youths & Sports and funds for #RioOlympic are being released,” she said.

The production of fertilizers has not been paid, so there was no production of fertilizer in 2015 which is the reason for increase in food price we expect them to start reducing the price in food crops

We need a rail connected to Ajaokuta there is no aim producing steel when there is no transport infrastructure in place.

We are definitely looking at at getting private funding to help in the building of our roads

We need to engage in production of home made goods to enable our economy and productivity level grow