Economy has turned the corner – says Uzoka-Anite

Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, Minister of State for Finance, says the Nigerian economy has turned the corner and Nigerians will soon begin to reap the benefits of the reforms by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The minister said this while speaking with State House correspondents after a bilateral meeting with Tinubu on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Uzoka-Anite was emphatic that the Nigerian economy was beginning to rebound.

“We can see some growth happening. It’s going to take a little bit of time, but as soon as all the reforms take root, the harsh economic environment and the suffering of the people will be a thing of the past.

“The president received today the MD of the International Monetary Fund, and she came specifically to commend the president on the reforms that he started.

“They are very strong reforms, very difficult to implement. The IMF is so pleased that we’ve been able to sustain it, and especially because they now see that the reforms are effective and that the benefits are now beginning to be felt by Nigerians.

“So, she came to pledge more support for the reforms and for the administration, and specifically offer technical assistance for budget support,” she said.

According to her, the IMF is offering technical support for budget design and budget implementation to make sure that the budget is effective.

“The second area of technical support that they are offering is in the area of our fiscal, monetary, and structural reforms.

“The third area is an area where they can help us to create more fiscal space and then help us to attract more concessionary funding from different development partners, because when you have higher fiscal space then you can actually do more.

“And the fourth area is in helping us with our borrowing policies so that we can borrow at a cheaper cost and that the benefits of the borrowing can be felt in the economy by everybody,” said the minister.

She added that the IMF boss was pleased with the social safety net program being implemented by the Tinubu administration targeting the poor and the vulnerable groups in society.

The minister said the objective of the program was to ensure the impact of the palliatives given out by the government would cushion the effect of the petrol subsidy and the foreign exchange subsidy removal.

He added,And so they are pledging more support to help Nigeria stabilise and for the economic realities we’re feeling to be ameliorated as quickly as possible.

“So, it was a very fruitful meeting, and we expect them in the near term to visit Nigeria, where we can then deepen the conversation and see how we can maximise the benefits of this particular meeting.”

On the negative perception by Nigerians of IMF advice, the Minister said the institution would always give advice, especially for low-income countries and vulnerable middle-income countries.

“We’re a vulnerable middle-income country, and you know the reforms that we’ve instituted have even made us even more vulnerable. And the IMF advice is not detrimental to the economy.

“Where you see countries that have followed the IMF advice strictly and followed it according to the advice, they always come out better.

“And yes, I understand the negative perception, but now we’ve instituted the reforms on our own. We didn’t even do the reform based on IMF advice,” she said.

Uuzoka-Anite explained that the Tinubu administration started the reform because it felt it was the best way for the economy to survive.

“For us to benefit maximally from government policies and incentives, we had to remove those subsidies.

“We did it on our own, and the IMF is saying now you’ve done the reform, so if we’re going to support you, they are not asking us to do any more reform because we’ve already done the reform,” said Uuzoka-Anite.

She stated that the IMF was committed to supporting Nigeria to ensure that the economy stabilised and for the citizens to feel the impact of the transformational policies and reforms of the government.