House to FG: Get N’ Assembly’s Approval Before Touching Savings

Laments Govt’s N1.8trn debt servicing in Q2 2021

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The House of Representatives has urged the federal government to make concerted and conscious efforts to secure the future by urgently controlling population growth with necessary policies and securing approval from the National Assembly before tampering with the country’s savings.

The lawmakers also advised the federal government to increase earnings, diversify resources, focus more on non-oil sectors of the economy by adopting alternative sources of revenue to enable foreign inflow from oil earnings to go straight to the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) without affecting budget financing.

The resolutions of the lawmakers were sequel to the adoption of a motion on the, ‘Need for the Federal Government to Save Funds for Future Generations,’ sponsored by Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe, at the plenary, yesterday.

Moving the motion, Obidigwe noted that the federal government ought to make conscious and concerted efforts to secure the future of Nigerians.

He expressed concerns that the federal government spent over N1.8 trillion on debts servicing in the first five months of the year 2021.

This, he said represents approximately 98 per cent of the total revenue generated in the same period, which begs the question of where the savings are.

The lawmaker said: “Also notes that Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) aims at the following: (i) save money for future generations provide stabilisation of funds to defend the economy against commodity (oil) price shocks, and provide financing for badly needed infrastructures.”

Further notes that Nigeria, with an estimated population of over 200 million, ranks 58 in SWF ranking which is four places lower than Angola – an oil-producing African country with a population of 32.87 million as of 2021 and has $3.2 billion in assets.

“Aware of this significant contrast to what other oil producers such as Kuwait, which has $700 billion “Life- After-Oil-Fund”, different from its $41.7 billion foreign reserves and Angola with $3.2 billion in assets both as of March 2021;

Concerned that a country such as Kuwait with a population of 4.2 million people and projected growth of 5.3 million by 2050, has a future fund of $700 billion to cater for their future population whereas Nigeria with an approximate population of over 200 million and an estimated population growth of 401 million people by 2050 has a Future Generations Fund of only $2.5 billion.”

Adopting the motion, the House mandated its Committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure implementation.