We Now Have More Resources For Development-Finance Minister

Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Wale Edun has revealed that the resources at government’s disposal for meeting social critical needs and provision of infrastructure to citizens of the country have now increased.

He made the revelation while speaking To State House Correspondents in Abuja.

The Minister said the initiative on purchase of crude oil by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is the reason why the government now has more money for development

“As a result of the implementation of those measures, there’s been a spike, an increase in the cost of living and Mr. President’s commitment was always to help the poor and the most vulnerable in particular, but the whole society in general, with managing that cost of living increase. 

“The good news that we can point to today is that the resources to cope and to help the society to make investments in critical public social sector and infrastructure has now increased. 

“As a result of the latest initiative to have local refineries pay for crude in Naira and thereby sell the PMs in Naira, has provided a veritable platform for moving to a stage where we have market pricing of petroleum products, market pricing of foreign exchange, and that has led to immediate gains of around N700 billion per month, starting from October, which will feed into the Federation Account,” he said.

The Finance Minister further revealed that so far twenty-five million Nigerians have benefited from the life improvement programme.

“In terms of the direct benefit and direct help to the general public, of course there was Wage Award at first, now there is the new minimum wage, there is direct transfers to the people on the social register that has been put together by all levels of government and is been verified.

“So people are paid after they have been uniquely identified biometrically, and they are paid digitally through a bank account or mobile wallet. Those payments have been rolled out. 

“They’ve now reached 5 million households, 25 million Nigerians, and first and second payments are being made, and that process of having a robust social register, where you can reach people directly and help them with payments that allow them to now choose what their priority is and go and then deal with that priority, is something that will be ongoing, a society always needs to help its poorest and its most vulnerable because relatively you’re always going to have people who need help.” 

Mr Edun also highlighted how workers and students across the country have benefited from the new scheme.

“The Consumer Credit Scheme to allow workers to be able to pay for things over time, to be able to afford various goods, including CNG kits to convert their car to a cheaper form of fuel, in the last five days, 11,000 beneficiaries have received N3.5 billion. So that’s an ongoing roll out of consumer credit to help people to make things more affordable to the worker. 

“The Student Loan Scheme has reached over half a million students, and it has disbursed over N90 billion and that is to the institutions for the students’ fees directly, and then to the students for their upkeep and it’s interest free loan. Of course, it’s providing access to higher education to so many who otherwise will not afford them. As I mentioned earlier, the CNG initiative to provide a cheaper source of fuel for fueling mass transit and even personal vehicles is ongoing,” stated the Minister,” he added