Minister of Finance, Kemi
Adeosun, over the weekend lent her voice to the call for the sale of some
national assets to revive the economy. Adeosun endorsed the sale while speaking
to some business editors in Abuja. Leadership quotes her as saying it is better
to sell off under-utilized assets than borrow money to revive the economy
‘‘I think there are lots
of assets being considered. There are some unused assets that are just lying
idle and people have come and said, ‘These things you are not using, can we
lease it from you?
I think when you are looking for money, some things that
government is sitting on, we don’t have money to do them and so it makes sense
for me to unlock those things as it will bring money to the economy at these
difficult times so that we can move forward. I don’t think we have got to the
stage where we say it’s this or that asset. The conversation now should be:
should we just keep borrowing, or now that things have got to this stage, we
should start to dislodge some under-utilized assets. And it’s not exclusive to
us, Saudi Arabia is selling some of its oil assets. So if you sell an asset and
use it to finance another asset which is going to give you more, then I don’t
have a problem with that.
The infrastructure challenges we face are so serious
and the kind of money that we need, we can’t borrow because when you have an
accumulated deficit, you need to look for the money that will sustain what you
are doing for the next three to four years. So, that is what we are looking at
and having a more strategic approach so that, over time, we will borrow less,
which, of course, is good in the long run,’ She revealed ways in which the assets
can be sold. ‘‘The investor will need to look at the risk and pricing
accordingly. We can sell to the Nigerian people or the pension fund and you can
also list these assets on the stock exchange. So there are different types of
sales,’’ she said
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