Lies they say, can run for a lifetime, but truth catches up in a second.....few months ago our we were told by our finance minister that "Nigeria was not broke" , but Alas wind don blow and fowl nyash don open.

OCTOBER 22, 2014

ABUJA—The Federal Government yesterday, reassured that Nigeria is financially sound and has been meeting its local and international financial obligations despite dwindling revenues from crude oil exports. The assurance came from Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The minister, who gave the assurance at a crowded press conference in Abuja, said: “Despite the dwindling revenue of the nation due to falling crude oil prices and decrease in output, the nation is not broke, as feared in some quarters”.

There have been concerns that the consistent fall in accruals to the federation account in recent months could jeopardize implementation of the 2014 budget but, the minister said in Abuja that contingency plans were being put in place to forestall any immediate adverse effect on the budget.

“Nigeria is a country that is dependent on one commodity (oil) and that commodity is dependent on how much the buyers want to buy. We had a yo-yo kind of expenditure pattern before 2003 but after that even when there was a fall in the price of crude from $140 to about $35 or $38 between 2003 and 2008, our economy remained stable because we had accumulated about $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account.

Oil and nation’s economy

“I want to assure Nigerians that we are putting in place contingency plans so that our economy remains stable. Right now, we have fluctuations in the price of crude oil and when that happens, it means that the money that comes into the coffers is a little bit small. Does that mean that the country is broke? If we are not able to pay salaries to people or meet other obligations then we can say the country is broke but we have not got there. Nigeria is not broke”.



http://ecowastribune.com/nigeria-not-broke-says-okonjo-iweala/



FAST FOWARD TO MAY 5, 2015



AFRICA'S LARGEST ECONOMY SURVIVING ON BORROWED CASH


Africa's richest economy is borrowing money to pay salaries as it struggles through a "difficult cash crunch" brought on by halved oil prices, Nigeria's finance minister revealed Tuesday. The news comes as Nigeria prepares to welcome a new government at the end of month and its naira currency remains in a slump, hovering between 180 and 220 to the U.S. dollar. It was trading at 160 a few months ago.

Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tried to be upbeat in a speech after the legislature Tuesday approved the 2015 budget thrice revised because of slashed oil prices that provide 80 percent of revenue for the government of Africa's biggest petroleum producer. She said "revenue challenges" have prohibited the release of any funds for capital expenditure this year but that food prices and single-digit inflation remain quite stable. And she said the economy still is on course to grow 4.8 percent this year.

"We have front-loaded the borrowing program to manage the cash crunch," Okonjo-Iweala told legislators. "Out of the 882 billon naira budgetary provision for borrowing, the government has borrowed 473 billion naira to meet up with recurrent expenditure, including salaries and overheads."

That's bad news for the incoming government of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, who takes over May 29 from incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. Buhari acknowledges that constricted revenue and endemic corruption threaten his will to deliver on development and reconstruction of areas devastated by a nearly 6-year-old Islamic uprising in the northeast.

He says his fight against corruption should produce the money needed to bring change to a country where petroleum riches benefit a small clique while the majority of the 170 million people in Africa's most populous nation live hand to mouth.

Critics blame the financial crisis in part on the most expensive election ever held in Nigeria, though no one knows how much politicians from both sides spent trying to buy influence and bribe voters.

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/news/business/article20301042.html#storylink=cpy

I'm so happy that we have changed this government to something new...

dat is ngozinomics for U

Tragic to see Okonjo-Iweala becoming the 'grand orchestrator' of the callous economic mismanagement and wanton looting that has now crippled Nigeria. She had the nerve to lie brazenly that Nigeria was economically 'buoyant' while many of us who knew the truth insisted she was lying shamelessly. The Cat is now out of the bag and I would like NOI to attempt spinning the current developments now revealing how messed up Nigeria is contrary to the lies she and her colleagues used to buy time in the hope they will continue mis managing the Nigerian economy beyond May 2015. Buhari should try and punish as many leaders of the outgoing government as possible. These people have really destroyed Nigeria. Even worse is the reality that they knew how dire the economic outlook is for Nigeria yet they still callously ahead to spend a fortune trying to buy an election win and a return to Aso Rock with Nigeria's money. Terrible. Very wicked and desperate folks.

https://www.nairaland.com/1839576/ghanas-economic-woes-worsen-apply/1

Gbawe:


You have said it all my good man. I did not want to hijack this thread and ungraciously make it about Nigeria and this is why I laughed silently and let issues be when some chap stated earlier that "the one good thing about GEJ is that he has a Finance Minister that runs a tight fiscal ship". that has to be the most horrid joke anyone can tell in the face of the reality of what GEJ has delivered. I believed that statement was a joke and simply treated it as such because to take it seriously would be to remain here all day commenting about the mountain-high evidence that shows up the GEJ government as one only deceiving the world with one massive Ponzi scheme of deception. Accountability and transparency might as well be words used in Pluto as far as the GEJ government is concerned and it is those who cannot, for one reason or the other, see through the deception who will think Nigeria is not in trouble.

What, for example, is responsible for the shortfall in allocated disbursement to States in a period when, as per consistently high oil price healthily above budgeted benchmark, Nigeria should have enough 'rainy day' saving to meet its most vital obligations? Why is a loan of $1 billion needed to fight insurgency when the Government had been granted over $14 billion for the same thing over 3 years and considering that Nigeria should be able to source $1 billion comfortably from its 'rainy day' savings given the high per barrel price of crude over the past few years the GEJ government has been in charge? The economic reality, for those who don't deceive themselves, is terrible under GEJ and I think Nigerians should learn to put partisanship, ethnicity and sectional bias aside to simply see right and wrong for the sake of their Country's development. This is where Ghanaians are different and this is what will make them unanimously vote Mahama out. If things don't change for the better before the next election even Mahama's son will not vote for him.

m

I shake my head. NOI's made a mess out of our economy. To me she was totally unqualified to handle Nigeria's economy