Meiji:


What do you have to say about the debt of the Lagos State government?

dekdek:
To even think that all these debts were incurred at a time when oil was going for over 100 dollars per barrel far lower than what we pegged the budget at makes me resolute on the fact that Jonah-daft is cursed.

Meiji:


Actually it's not clear "to the biggest critic" what the Lagos State government has done with the borrowed funds. Didn't the Lagos State government also benefit from high crude oil prices, like everyone else? Why has the Lagos Metroline not been completed (despite promises that it would be finished by June 2013)? Isn't that an example of failed promises?

You talk about "borrowing to pay salaries". What about Ogbeni Rauf and Rotimi Amaechi that haven't paid their workers? What do you have to say about that, Demdem?

I'm not trying to defend this administration (it has had many failures). My point is that we need to stop this partisan agenda of painting Jonathan as the sole problem with Nigeria. APC state governments also bear a large part of the blame for the collective mess the country is in.

Eruditor:


1. Nigeria sells crude at a price premium to Brent and Oman-Dubai. In other words our crude is more expensive.

2. Nigeria produces more crude than Algeria.

3. If Saudi and Norway can have FR to the tune of such valuations then Nigeria should have something way beyond 29.9B $. OBJ, left it at 62B $ before leaving even though he sold crude at less than half the price during GEJs time.

There's no excuse for the recklessness of GEJs government. C'est fini.

Ishilove:
They sucked us dry in this country. Vampires.

bushdoc9919:


1. Saudi Arabia has 11 million people. Norway has 11 million people. Algeria has 37 million people.

2.Norway has a very strong industrial sector...which also earns them extra cash.

3.Saudi and Norway are the No 1 AND No2 oil producers. Nigeria is number 8.

4.Nigeria has 170 million people and no strong industrial sector....especially heavy industry.(Norway has that well well.)



Even if we saved all the money...and fight corruption....we STILL won't have enough cash. That is why Nigeria must industrialize. Our resources are not enough to sustain us.

989900:


Riddle me this:

Eruditor:


LOL. We benchmarked crude at less than 50$ per barrel and sold it for more than 115$ for more than 2 years. The Excess of more than 64$ per barrel should have been SAVED. Or was it? And what happened to that savings?

ECOTERRORS:
take a stand, do you support APC or PDP. Don't sit on the fence

bushdoc9919:

And I am angry with the PDP because they refuse to get us off oil...and leave us vulnerable to the effects of Dutch disease (google Dutch disease).

Eruditor:


1. Nigeria sells crude at a price premium to Brent and Oman-Dubai. In other words our crude is more expensive.

2. Nigeria produces more crude than Algeria.

3. If Saudi and Norway can have FR to the tune of such valuations then Nigeria should have something way beyond 29.9B $. OBJ, left it at 62B $ before leaving even though he sold crude at less than half the price during GEJs time.

There's no excuse for the recklessness of GEJs government. C'est fini.

patrick89:
amechi led group sued Fg and okonjo, forcing them to share it and they did!!

patrick89:
amechi led group sued Fg and okonjo, forcing them to share it and they did!!

FG, States, LGs Share N568.4 Billion for Oct
15 NOVEMBER 2013

Also, $1billion was proposed for distribution to complement shortfall in expected revenue." The $1billion is a compromise by the FG over its words in September not to augment shortfalls anymore.

Responding to the presentation, the chairman of the States Commissioners of Finance and Ebonyi State Commissioner of Finance, Mr Timothy Odaah, lamented that the statutory allocation was getting smaller and smaller. "It appears this is the worst in terms of returns. This is the least in allocations as far as this year is concerned. We are mourning the dearth of funds and this is a wakeup call for states and local governments to buoy up their internally generated revenue."

While appreciating the "magnanimity" of President Goodluck Jonathan to approve the $1billion from the excess crude account and to be shared among the federal, state and local governments, Odaah expressed disappointment with the returns made by the NNPC.

He said that [size=14pt]the states had requested for $2bn[/size] to complement for the shortfall in revenue but got only $1billion. In September, Odaah and fellow commissioners had walked out of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) when the federal government said that the framework of the 2013 budget was no longer realistic and it won't augment shortfall in revenue. Odaah raised issues with the statutory allocations of previous months.

More from: http://allafrica.com/stories/201311150323.html

omonnakoda:
The take home message is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is an over-hyped failure

patrick89:
you have been waiting for this day! You are the failure here for not recognising her efforts! She made sure ghost workers are off. Importation was less stressful. Paying the workers when due. SMEs mortgage bank, and development bank are all her ideas.. Now tell me what your mother has achieved apart from bringing to earth a disaster like you!

Corruption in Nigeria must be stopped because the thieves are stealing from a not so buoyant treasury.

989900:


Riddle me this:

Why didn't the Naira appreciate when it was 'rising oil prices'?

Greatest oil plunge (prices) ever was in '08 from $147.27 to $33.55.
And Naira didn't commit suicide then. Agreed there could be some drop in value of the Naira but this is tooo much!

In 1998 to early 1999, during Gen. Abdulsalami, oil price dropped to $9, exchange rate stabilized at about N88.

So, if your exchange rate was N88 with oil price at nine dollars, how can you explain that when your oil price is over $50 . . .(presently between $65-70 for the past few weeks . . . over $100/barrel oil is not a given . . . even the Rouble with all the sanctions, have made a 20% comeback), while claiming biggest economy in Africa, top 3 projected growth rate in the world, and your exchange rate is now N200,N210,N215 to $1?

How do you go about selling oil for the highest prices ever, over the longest period ever, while depleting the country's reserve from $62b (ECA inclusive) to what $30b or thereabout?!! While OBJ could grow our reserves from less than $5b in 1999 to $42b, while selling oil at an average of $35/barrel.

if the economy was better managed, our foreign reserves should have been between $100 –$120 billion and exchange rate around N110 before the fall in oil prices. As of now, the reserves should be around $90 billion and exchange rate no higher than N125 per dollar.

You say your growth is a non-oil sector . . . , how come that the depreciation in oil price has so much impact on your economy?

When the likes of countries like Qatar, U.A.E, Saudi and co. were busy investing both home and abroad, to secure their economies and their children's future, and the whole world tapping-in frantically into the service sector income generation, what were we doing?

Buying 10 private jets?

Flying chattered for N10b naira!

Going from paying N200-300b in fuel subsidy to paying N2 trillion, while all our refineries needed less than N100b to get back to refining roughly 30million litres of PMS/day!!

Spending N10b on some conference/partying?

Forget about the massive plundering that went into the elections, yet, getting the refineries to work, is so much work.
90% of the country's budget is for what again . . . and yet we borrow?

And my president feeds/feasts with roughly N3m/day!

omonnakoda:
Your mother will bleed to death. She will die coughing

omonnakoda:
Your mother will bleed to death. She will die coughing

patrick89:
thunder will annihilate any trace of you. And your generation! Your mother will never wake up tomorrow!

omonnakoda:
The federal government has NO RIGHT to keep money belonging to the state govenments in a so called Excess Crude Account. It is unconstitutional

Leaving that to one side The FG budget is based on a benchmark and so the FG is well within its right to keep ITS OWN funds or earnings above the benchmark in an Excess Crude Account.The State governments CANNOT COMPEL the FG to spend its own share. So the excuse that the States forced the FG to share the money DOES NOT WASH. Where is the Federal Government share of the ECA. In fact the only way the FG could spend it lawfully was to have a supplementary budget.The FG not only spent it but continued to borrow running a DEFICIT BUDGET EVERY YEAR. How can the state government be blamed for that.

The blame for this goes squarely on the President ,the Finance Minister and the Legislators for not providing anything remotely like oversight

It is unfortunate that when it comes to budgeting both at state and FG level the legislators are mere rubber stamps

patrick89:
what is this one saying?

omonnakoda:
Your mother will die coughing she will choke to death

patrick89:
I'm sure your mother is dead! Silly subhuman!

bushdoc9919:


All good ideas....that will lead to the removal of the government.

Because unfortunately due to our oil dependent economy., we do not have a vibrant private sector that would have absorbed all them sacked staff.

(Yes JJ Rawlings did it in the 1980's in Ghana...and people suffered. But the economy improved!).

As for removing the subsidy....it is a good idea....but sadly most Nigerians only see the price at the pump....not the long term savings that would have been made.

Your ideas are good......but this is Nigeria.Good does not work here at all.

omonnakoda:
Your mother will choke to death

patrick89:
no brother google Currency War you will find out that naira is performing bera than some currencies. All the oil producing nations from venezuela, norway russia etc have devalued their currency more than naira. Go figure out! Nigeria isn't the only country with devalued currency! Infact. Nigeria is doing very well when compared with other countries aside UAE and qatar and mind you their SWF is far bigger than nigerian, their reserves too are way bigger than nigeria. We have infrastructural deficit unlike the developed nation like norway yet their currency against dollar is horrible. smh

Naira was one of the world's worst performing currencies of 2014?!!.

It is not topping that chart presently because, it has already fallen. Plus, your charts would not tell you that, you would not get the dollar at N197, rather at N210(interbank) or N220 (parallel).

Foreign reserves are half of the story, UAE, Norway, Canada, Oman and some others have probably less than $80b. However, most gulf countries have their currencies pegged to the dollar for over 20 years or more now.

Nigeria is probably doing better than Venezuela only . . .lol.
Even Russia and Iran under enormous sanctions have made gains . . . the Rouble has made 20% gain with the 'rising oil prices', akin to saying the Naira now exchanges for N150/$1.


You do not need any google/froogle or anything/body to tell you that your N155,000=$1,000, is better than your N210,000=$1,000 (inter bank rate).

patrick89:
my rip regard to your dead mother sissy!