The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma has said the federal government will not sell all national assets.
Udoma, in a statement by his Media Adviser, James Akpandem on Saturday in Abuja, said the primary objective of government’s fiscal stimulus plan was not to sell off all major critical national assets but to source for immediate funds to get the economy out of recession.
He said the intention of government was just to get enough money to fund the 2016 budget and to put the economy back on the path of recovery.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Economic Management Team had been working on a plan to generate immediate large injection of funds into the economy.
The team had plans to generate and inject large amount of funds, estimated at between 10 billion dollars and 15 billion dollars into the economy.
“This unfortunate scenario has prompted the team to urgently work out a fiscal stimulus plan to generate immediate large injection of funds into the economy,’’ he said.
He said the plans were to generate funds through asset sales, advance payment for license rounds, infrastructure concessioning, use of recovered funds to reduce the funding gap.
The other option, according to the minister, would have been to source for additional loans, beyond the level of borrowing already projected for in the 2016 budget.
“This would not be a wise option as it would raise the level of debt service to an unsustainable level,’’ Udoma said
He also said the government was exploring several options in the asset sales proposal including repurchase options, which would make provision for buy-back of those assets when the situation improved. – Punch.
