“It’s the worst possible time for us” – Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun on Wednesday, said that the country is in its worst possible times.

This is coming after the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for the 2016 second quarter released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) sunk further down by 2.06%, showing that the economy is now in recession.

The nation’s external reserves fell by 2.86 per cent to $25.45bn on August 29, 2016, the latest report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed on Wednesday. The foreign exchange reserves stood at $26.2bn at the end of July, PUNCH reports.

Speaking to State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of the Federal Executive Council held inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the minister said:

It’s the worst possible time for us. Are we confused? Absolutely not.

I think that we have a long way to go. We’re not confused and we’re not deceiving ourselves that everything is rosy. It’s not.

 It’s a difficult time for Nigeria but I think Nigeria is in the right hands and if we can stick with our strategy…. We still have some adjustments to make. I think we need to make some adjustments in monetary policy.

She however, assured that the nation will come out of the recession. She posted on her twitter handle:

I believe this economy will turn around in no distant time. I know people are concerned about recession.

We can come out of a recession as soon as possible by sticking to the prescription which is, We must be disciplined in our expenditure… We must invest in our capital and we must diversify our economy.

Also, the presidency had earlier said that the figures pose better economic outlook for the second quarter of the year.