The Executive Secretary of the
Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Waziri Adio, has
revealed that previous administrations between 2005 and 2015 spent more than
what it saved from crude oil revenue.
This was disclosed by NEITI’s
Executive Director during an interview with Arise TV on Thursday.
Adio, who was appointed by
President Muhammadu Buhari to head NEITI noted that during the period
mentioned, Nigeria made no saving from oil as a result of the spending spree.
According to Adio, between 2005
and 2015, $201.2bn entered into the excess crude account, while the country
spent $204.7bn.
He said, “Between January 2005
and June 2015, the money that entered into the excess crude oil account as
savings was $201.2 billion but the country spent $204.7 billion within the same
period, which means that the country spent more than what it saved from oil
from 2005 to 2015, and this amounts to no savings at all.
“Even if the country had saved 25
percent of the $201.2 billion, by the time prices of oil started falling, we
would have had about N50.3 billion in excess crude oil account alone.
“We have been in the journey of
saving our earnings for over 30 years now, but the problem we have is that we
save and spend instead of saving and keeping.
“So we need to look back as a
country and know where we got it wrong. There is good need to spend but it will
be easier if we have savings so that we can spend from what we have saved.
“We are not against savings but
we should be able to spend from what we saved. When we had a boom, we were
saving but our spending became far more than our savings.
“Yes we know there are some
infrastructural and developmental challenges that need to be addressed with
money but we need to develop the culture of saving as a country.
“It makes sense to save
especially when we depend on revenue generated from natural resources.”
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