THE National Economic Council, NEC, retreat which ended on Tuesday, March 22, in Abuja,  has decided to stimulate the Nigerian economy. Kemi Adeosun, minister of Finance, said at the end of the first retreat of NEC, which started on Monday, that the her ministry, in anticipation of the approval of the budget, have virtually lined up about N350 billion which would be pumped into the Nigerian economy in the forthcoming months.

“We explained our rationale and the processes that we have put in place, safeguards to ensure that this money actually achieve the desired objective, which is to stimulate the economy. We are already discussing with some of the contractors who will be paid these monies and the objectives from the overall criteria is how many Nigerians would be re-engaged.

“We are specifically looking at contractors who have laid off staff and how many Nigerians are you going to put back to work as a result of this money that we are planning to release. We believe this would bring significant economic activity,” the minister said.

According to her, the retreat deliberated extensively on the drop in revenue, particularly as to how it affects the state government and their ability to pay salaries and fulfill other obligations.

The general resolve of the council was that there was a need to bring in more cost efficiency in the operations of government, specifically the setting up an efficiency unit within the state governments, to rationalize expenditure and to increase IGR, she said.

— Mar. 23, 2016 @ 8:20 GMT

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