Zainab Ahmed, the
minister of finance, budget and national planning, says the federal government
is considering giving out stipends to people whose jobs have been affected by
the coronavirus outbreak.
Ahmed was speaking
on Politics Today, a programme on Channels TV.
“We have a number of
fiscal incentives that we have thought through and designed but we have to do a
couple of engagements before we announce them because of our fragile fiscal
situation,” she said.
“We don’t want to
rush and make announcements of tax cuts or tax holidays without looking at the
full picture of how it affects the federal government, states and how it
affects businesses.
“The government is
looking at the possibility of giving out stipends, increasing the stipends that
it giving out to the category of Nigerians that are classified as poor and
vulnerable.
“Also, we are
looking at the category of citizens that have been affected by the nature of
their jobs by this pandemic. For example, airports are closed so people who run
taxi services at the airport will be at home with nothing to do. So we have to
carefully identify the groups that will get these interventions. We are also
not forgetting businesses.”
She said the
government is still trying to determine the method of disbursing the funds and
ensuring maximum impact given Nigeria’s large population.
However, the
minister said the economy would enter a recession if the health crisis lasts up
to six months.
“Are we broke, no we
are not broke. Are we buoyant, we are not buoyant as well. We have resources to
manage and we have been able to find new sources of funds to realise very
quickly to keep the country stable,” she said.
“Fact is, we are
going to struggle in terms of revenue. The federal and state government will be
frantically looking for alternative sources of funding in the form of budget
support.
“We are hopeful that
this pandemic will be limited in time. If it is an average of three months, we
should be able to close the year with positive growth. If it goes longer than
that, six months, one year, we will go into a recession.”
She said the federal
government is already talking with lenders to renegotiate repayment terms and
“seek a stay of the debt service to preserve some of the revenue”.
Nigeria’s revenue
has taken a hit after crude oil, its major source of income, witnessed a sharp
price decline.
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